Defendant Requesting Speedy Trial in Trump Election Case Pleads Not Guilty

Yet another defendant has filed to sever his case, while the prosecution argues against such motions

Fulton County Sheriff officers block off a street in front of the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 14, 2023. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Kenneth Chesebro, who was named alongside former President Donald Trump and 17 others in a racketeering case in Fulton County, Georgia, has pleaded not guilty ahead of Sept. 6 arraignments, waiving his right to appear in court (pdf).

The 19 defendants are being charged over actions to challenge the 2020 election results in Georgia, which prosecutor Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, claims constituted a “criminal racketeering enterprise” and conspiracy. Mr. Chesebro served as an attorney for President Trump during that period, and helped to organize the alternate slate of electors.

On Aug. 31, lawyers for Mr. Chesebro filed the not guilty plea along with a response to Ms. Willis’s insistence in a filing published Aug. 29 that all defendants be tried together on Oct. 23 and her Aug. 30 filing about the “effects” of his demand.

They objected to the proposed timeline in which Ms. Willis claims Mr. Chesebro waived his rights to the standard discovery timeline because of his demand for a speedy trial, claiming that it was retaliation for Mr. Chesebro’s request.

They argued the filing was “an attempt to convince this Court that the State need not fully comply with its statutory discovery obligations, apparently as  a punishment for Mr. Chesebro exercising his statutory right to a speedy trial.”

Speedy Trial Timeline

After Mr. Chesebro’s earlier request for a speedy trial, Ms. Willis proposed an Oct. 23 trial date.

Judge Scott McAfee ordered an Oct. 23 trial date and wrote in his order that the timeline for Mr. Chesebro’s trial would not be required for any of the 18 other defendants.

Attorneys for President Trump, Ray Smith, and Sidney Powell, who separately filed a demand for a speedy trial, have already filed motions to sever their cases from Mr. Chesebro’s. Others may seek to do the same.

But on Aug. 24, Ms. Willis filed a motion urging the court to try all 19 defendants together on Oct. 23, arguing that Mr. Chesebro never filed a motion to sever his case, making the judge’s decision to do so improper (pdf).

She further filed a motion requesting the judge to inform the defendants (pdf) of “the effects of their speedy trial demands upon evidentiary and procedural rights,” arguing that given the “speedy” timeline, the defendants are no longer entitled to the discovery, evidence, and witness list from the prosecution side 10 days in advance of trial, and they furthermore waive their right to advanced notice of the trial.

“The Defendants cannot now complain that they received less than seven (7) days notice of the trial date in this case,” Ms. Willis wrote.

Mr. Chesebro’s lawyers argued that Ms. Willis misunderstands what the statutory right to a speedy trial entails, calling the assertion “absurd” and arguing she “erroneously” cited case precedents to make her case.

“The discovery statute is black letter law. Discovery must be provided 10 days before trial,” they asserted, arguing there is no case history in Georgia to support Ms. Willis’s argument, and detailing the history of the cases she used as precedent (pdf). They further implied that the prosecution’s request to flout the timeline set by the judge showed the prosecution’s inability to meet the speedy trial demands.

“The State cannot sit back with its hands crossed and not provide discovery in hopes that Defendant will seek a continuance,” they wrote. “The State should not just be allowed to sit on its thumbs to run down the clock, as late as possible, to gain a tactical advantage in this litigation.”

The Georgia case is enormous in scale and profile—many legal experts have been watching and weighing in on the validity of the arguments emerging on both the prosecution and defense sides in the 41-count indictment, which is a similar case to what President Trump will face in federal court next March in Washington, D.C.

Observers have thus often pointed out that the timelines Ms. Willis has proposed are rushed. Her initial claim on Aug. 14 when the indictment was handed up, that she would bring the case to trial in six months, was met with widespread skepticism. It was especially so when she further claimed she would try all 19 defendants together, as the case would then need to take into account each defendant’s schedule, as well as their legal teams’ schedules. When on Aug. 23 she proposed to try all 19 defendants together in two months’ time, she received further pushback from several of the defendants’ legal counsels who have since severed their cases.

On Aug. 31, Mr. Smith was the latest defendant to sever his case.

“As currently postured, this case involves too many defendants,” the attorneys wrote, “too many disparate acts, too many prosecution witnesses, and a complex array of relationships of all the witnesses and defendants for the jury to comprehend.”

Defendants named in the case range from the former president to a bail bondsman in Georgia, and a pastor from Illinois who was accused of speaking to an election worker and potential witness in acts to further a conspiracy. Mr. Smith’s lawyers argued that the case should be severed into “reasonable bite-size segments” that would make it more comprehensible to a jury, and more reasonable for the defendants preparing for trial.

“Ray Smith was never informed that he was a target of the grand jury’s investigation. He was never invited to meet with the prosecution to review evidence. He has never been privy to any of the discovery provided to any co-defendant, or to information supplied to co-defendants informally by the prosecution. He will not be prepared for trial in October 2023,” they wrote.