A state judge in New York City, in the first lower-court reaction to the Supreme Court’s new ruling on presidential legal immunity, decided on Tuesday to delay imposing a sentence on ex-President Donald Trump for his conviction in May on 34 state charges.,
In a two-page order, Judge Juan M. Merchan also agreed to rule, by September 6, on a new plea by Trump’s legal team to overturn the guilty verdicts, based on their claim that evidence used at the trial violated the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling. Trump’s lawyers made that request within hours after the Justices had released their ruling strongly favoring Trump’s defense to charges growing out of the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The New York jury verdicts against Trump are unrelated to the federal charges in the January 6 case that were at issue in the Supreme Court case, but the Justices’ decision was a sweeping declaration of constitutional immunity for any President or ex-President accused of crime, in federal or state courts.
The New York case grew out of events late in the presidential election campaign of 2016; Trump was elected in November of that year. He was accused of violating New York state business records laws by a scheme to pay off an adult-film star to keep his prior sexual relationship with her undisclosed during that campaign. The jury found him guilty on all counts, meaning that he faced a potential jail sentence of up to four years.
His sentencing by Judge Merchan had been scheduled for next week – on July 11. However, after the Supreme Court decision Monday, Trump’s lawyers asked the judge to delay that hearing and to conduct a formal review of their claim that the verdicts should now be overturned. Prosecutors said they did not oppose a delay of the sentencing, but argued that Trump’s new legal claim had no merit.
In his order Tuesday, outlined in a letter to both sides, the judge told the Trump lawyers to file a brief on their challenge to the verdicts by July 10 and told prosecutors to file a response by July 24. He withdrew a prior order to impose sentence on July 11. The judge said he would rule on Trump’s new challenge by September 6. If the verdicts are left standing, the judge said, a sentencing hearing would occur on September 18.
In terms of this year’s presidential campaign, these new developments in New York mean that delegates to the Republican presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee will meet later this month without knowing whether Trump’s only conviction so far will stand or, if so, what sentence he would receive.
The reactions to the Supreme Court ruling demonstrated, anew, that Trump and his lawyers have been remarkably successful in winning delays of all of the criminal cases against him. The January 6 federal case, at issue in the Justices’ Monday decision, will now be delayed for months, almost certainly not starting until after the November 5 election. Already, a federal case in Florida and a state case in Georgia have slowed down significantly, and neither is likely to go to trial before voters go to the polls.
Trump’s legal team very likely will try to end all of the cases against him by repeating the claims his attorneys made to Judge Merchan. That claim is based upon the Justices’ 6-to-3 ruling that a President or former President accused of crime has absolute immunity to any charges related to official presidential duties. Evidence based on official actions, the Court ruled in a 5-to-4 part of its ruling, cannot be used by prosecutors to help prove guilt based on a non-official action, which would not have immunity otherwise.
The Trump challenge is that New York state prosecutors won convictions of him by relying upon telephone calls, emails and speeches he made when he was serving as President, following the 2016 election, to carry out the so-called “hush money” scheme.
Given the new decision, the Trump lawyers told the judge, the verdicts against him “cannot stand.” Those verdicts, they added, “violate the presidential immunity doctrine.”
