Trump lawyers will not present a defence case at E Jean Carroll trial

Judge says jury should receive civil rape case by ‘early next week’

Donald Trump’s lawyers will not present a defence case at the E Jean Carroll trial.

Mr Trump’s expert witness won’t be testifying in the proceedings, Ms Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan said in court, meaning that the former president has no witnesses on his side.

Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina later confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that the defence team would not put forward a case, according to Law & Crime.

Mr Tacopina went on to mention the Carroll legal team including the “Billy Bush tape” in their case.

“We all know what you’re talking about,” Judge Lewis Kaplan said, referring to the Access Hollywood tape released during the 2016 campaign in which Mr Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women.

Mr Trump later claimed that it was simply “locker room talk” and that he didn’t behave as such.

Judge Kaplan said that the jury should receive the case by “early next week”.

Ms Carroll, the former Elle magazine advice columnist, sued Mr Trump in 2019 and 2022. The current trial is a civil case in which Ms Carroll is alleging that Mr Trump is guilty of battery and defamation in connection to a rape allegation.

Ms Carroll has claimed that Mr Trump sexually assaulted her in a fitting room at the Berghof Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

On Wednesday, a psychological expert hired by the Carroll legal team, Dr Leslie Lebowitz, said that Ms Carroll showed signs of PTSD but that she didn’t fulfil the full criteria.

Dr Lebowitz said that a “high level of harm” is required for such a diagnosis.

“You’re talking about a pretty severe mental illness, which is often chronic,” she said, according to Law & Crime.

“What happens to a person’s brain when they experience trauma?” a lawyer for Ms Carroll asked.

“When your brain is flooded with stress hormones, our normal functioning is altered,” Dr Lebowitz said, adding that Ms Carroll testifying about adrenaline going through her body is consistent with that.

She added that the brain being affected by stress hormones can take over other usual reactions.

“They don’t scream, even if they’re being raped” in a fitting room, Dr Lebowitz said, Law & Crime reported.

Ms Carroll testified previously during the trial that she didn’t scream during the alleged attack.

The writer grew emotional at times during her testimony earlier in the trial when she outlined Mr Trump’s alleged rape in graphic detail.

Dr Lebowitz said on Wednesday that “people with trauma tend to hyper-attend to certain elements, and ignore other ones”.

She added that people may also have detailed recollections of what happened at the start of an incident, but that they may forget how they exited the situation, according to Law & Crime.

Speaking about memories detailing the time and place of traumatic incident fading over time, Dr Lebowitz said that “those kind of details are context. They’re the other things. Our brain doesn’t hold on to things that at the time didn’t seem important”.

She said the brain holds onto things that appear to be “salient” or “life-threatening”.

“Intrusive memories are like flags that are planted where unresolved and traumatic memories lie,” she said. “You don’t choose to think about it – it just enters.”

Asked about triggers for intrusive memories, Dr Lebowitz said, “I think most of us would assume that there’s some sort of a trigger, but one does not always know what it is”.

Dr Lebowitz mentioned the example of a combat veteran having a panic attack but not knowing what the trigger may have been.

A veteran of the Vietnam War may pass a Vietnamese restaurant and the smell of the food may serve as the trigger, but they may not be aware of it, she said.