Close date may be extended as long as the outcome is unclear.
IMPORTANT: This market will resolve to the outcome that ends the trial. If some charges are dropped (or a plea bargain is struck), but others go all the way to a jury verdict, this market resolves to jury verdict.
For jury decisions on multiple counts that end the trial, resolves to the valid option listed highest in the description. Guilty if guilty on any counts, otherwise mistrial if mistrial on any counts, otherwise not guilty.
Resolution Details
Guilty (of at least one crime) by jury verdict: A jury declares Trump guilty of at least one crime.
Mistrial: The trial is declared a mistrial due to a hung jury (jury can't reach a unanimous verdict), procedural error, or misconduct. Resolves regardless of whether the case is retried.
Not guilty (of any crimes) by jury verdict: A jury clears Trump of all crimes
Plea bargain: Trump agrees to any sort of plea bargain, ending the trial. If there is a plea bargain on some charges, and a jury later rules Trump not guilty on the remaining charges, the market still resolves to "not guilty by jury verdict".
Dismissal / dropped charges: A judge drops all the charges, ending the trial, or dismisses the case for another reason. Includes the prosecution dropping charges with no plea deal.
If there is an outcome that is not enumerated here, I reserve the right to split resolution or resolve N/A, but I will try my best not to. I will not bet. This market is about the initial lawsuit, not any appeals or retrials.
Related questions
Since this market is set up to resolve to a single option, I created another for a proportionate breakdown:
IMPORTANT: This market will resolve to the outcome that ends the trial. If some charges are dropped (or a plea bargain is struck), but others go all the way to a jury verdict, this market resolves to jury verdict.
Is your worry that it will happen at the same time as part of the same jury decision? I can add a clarification.
@DanMan314 Yes. This is possible and therefore the market is flawed.
It's possible for the jurors to agree on 33 of Trump's counts but hang on one. This nearly happened during the Penn State scandal trial that I was a juror on and occurs pretty commonly. If that were to occur, there would be a partial verdict - both a mistrial and some counts that were successfully decided. Oftentimes, if the prosecutor gets some guilty verdicts, he packs it up and doesn't re-try the others.
Consider what happens if there are indeed 33 guilty verdicts and one mistrial. You can see that the market is unresolvable.
The market treats a mistrial as an exclusive condition, which is flawed. To correct it, you would need to make the market unlinked. You could also change the text to "mistrial on all counts," which would lead to exclusive conditions. However, given how high those odds were bid up, I find it hard to believe that all the bettors believe there is a greater than 20% chance that out of 34 possible crimes, the jurors would not be able to find at least one on which they agree.
I don't have much at stake in this market, so I'm not asking for a specific action to be taken. The most obvious way to be fair is probably to declare N/A and start over, but that has some unfairness to the bettors on the other options losing their earned money.
@SteveSokolowski Thanks for the feedback! I actually had a bounty market active for this kind of thing, but shut it down because of lack of responses. I've tipped you Ṁ100.
I've added a clarification that the options will resolve in the order stated in the description. The other potential option would be a split resolution, but I believe this better complies with my promise to avoid splitting the resolution where possible and lines up with the spirit of "guilty of at least one crime".
I'm not going to N/A. I don't think this is the only edge case that exists, as trial outcomes can get pretty complicated, but I think the linked market format is worth the tradeoffs and will improve over time.
The trial begins today! You can follow along with updates from the courtroom on the dashboard, and at NBC, NYT, and WaPo.
My strongest reading recommendation is the Just Security Guide To the Case, which tells us what to expect at every step from jury selection to conviction and sentencing.