(NOTE: Post updated to include additional detail.)
New York prosecutors chose on Monday to leave it to the trial judge in Donald Trump’s state criminal case to decide either to delay or to go ahead with imposing a sentence next month — a decision with significant political and legal meaning.
The district attorney’s new filing, however, seemed to imply that a delay might make it easier for state courts to deal with the further unfolding of the case after Judge Juan M. Merchan makes a key ruling on Trump’s attempt to overturn all 34 guilty verdicts. Here is a link to the prosecutors’ filing: Trump sentence date DA reply
Judge Merchan, who previously had set September 18 as a date for imposing a sentence, said earlier this month that the date would remain while he considers how to apply to the jury verdicts the U.S. Supreme Court’s new ruling giving Trump as an ex-President broad legal immunity to criminal prosecution. The judge has promised to release his ruling on that issue on September 16.
Trump, in the midst of campaigning for the November presidential election, wants the sentencing put off until after the voters have gone to the polls. Any punishment for the New York crimes, his lawyers have argued, could affect voters’ reaction to his candidacy – an argument that his legal team has made repeatedly in attempts to slow or delay each of his criminal cases.
In asking that the sentencing be delayed, Trump’s attorneys told Judge Merchan that they would plan to file an immediate appeal to higher state or federal courts, if he rejects the immunity claim and keeps the guiity verdicts intact.
The prosecutors, reacting to the planned appeal, said on Monday that it would have an effect on when sentencing could occur. If the judge’s ruling on September 16 is met by an immediate appeal, the prosecutors said, there would be only a single day for appeals courts to act.
In the meantime, if the September 18 sentencing hearing goes forward that day, the prosecutors said, there would have to be significant security arrangements put in place. That’s because Trump would have to appear in court for sentencing, and his coming and going would have to be managed by his Secret Service protective details and state and local police. A swift appeal by Trump might make it necessary to undo such arrangements, the prosecutors commented.
Meanwhile, in another part of the new filing, the prosecutors repeated their prior argument that the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling should have little, if any, impact on the New York verdicts. At most, that ruling could only potentially affect only “a small subset of the trial evidence” leading to those verdict, the filing argued.
Further, the prosecutors said, it is not clear that the Supreme Court’s immunity decision does give Trump a right to file an immediate appeal if his immunity claim is rejected. The Supreme Court dealt only with presidential immunity before a trial even starts, and the New York trial, of course, has been held and is over.
By contrast, Trump’s team has argued that the trial proceeding will not actually be over until sentence is imposed, so the judge’s immunity ruling – if it comes before a sentence is imposed – would be subject to an immediate appeal to higher courts.
It is unclear, at this point, when Judge Merchan will rule anew on the sentencing date, and whether he will move up his plan to decide the immunity question on the September 16 date previously announced.
