Lyle Denniston

Aug 19 2024

Trump sentencing date: up to judge (UPDATED)

(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,… Read More

Aug 15 2024

Trump seeks delay of sentencing (UPDATED)

UPDATE: This is an expended version of an earlier post.) Continuing to use his political candidacy as a legal shield, former President Donald Trump has asked a New York state court judge to delay until after the election a decision on his sentencing on 34 criminal convictions. In a letter Wednesday to Judge Juan M…. Read More

Aug 8 2024

Trying again to revive ERA

The nation’s largest legal organization, the American Bar Association, moved this week to use its influence to try to put into the U.S. Constitution a strong guarantee of equal rights for women. In a vote at the annual meeting in Chicago of the ABA’s policymaking arm, the House of Delegates, the lawyers’ group approved a… Read More

Aug 3 2024

Trump’s January 6 case re-started

Moving briskly to re-open the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump for his attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election, a federal trial judge in Washington took steps on Saturday to move the case forward after a months-long delay. U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan ordered federal prosecutors and Trump’s defense lawyers to meet… Read More

Aug 1 2024

Trump seeks broader legal immunity

Lawyers for Donald Trump, seeking even broader legal immunity than the Supreme Court has given, made a new maneuver this week to end the case that had resulted in his conviction of 34 crimes in New York state court. In a new brief made public Thursday, the former President’s legal team argued that his immunity… Read More

Jul 29 2024

Biden, Harris seek Court change

UPDATE: For those wishing to listen to or read President Franklin Roosevelt’s “fireside chat”on Court-packing, here is a link to the audio and the transcript, courtesy of the Miller Center at the University of Virginia: https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/march-9-1937-fireside-chat-9-court-packing Facing long odds against the idea, President Biden and Vice President Harris on Monday began an effort to restrict… Read More

Jul 25 2024

Prosecutors defend Trump verdicts

None of Donald Trump’s 34 guilty verdicts need to be erased because of the new doctrine of presidential immunity, a team of prosecutors in New York argued in a new state court filing that has both legal and political significance.  This is the first effort in a lower court to test the effect of the… Read More

Jul 15 2024

Mar-a-Lago case ended — for now

A Florida federal judge, giving Donald Trump a huge legal victory that might only be temporary, on Monday dismissed all 40 criminal charges in the Mar-a-Lago case involving the former President’s handling of secret government documents. That is expected to set up a swift appeal to higher courts by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, whose appointment… Read More

Jul 13 2024

Trump seeks to end New York case

Trying to expand even wider the Supreme Court’s new ruling creating broad legal immunity for Presidents who break the law, Donald Trump’s lawyers have asked a state judge in New York to overturn his 34 guilty verdicts and to forbid any new trial. That is the only case so far to result in convictions of… Read More

Jul 7 2024

Widening impact of Trump immunity ruling

The potential unraveling of all of the criminal cases against Donald Trump continued on Saturday, even before the Supreme Court puts into effect its decision this week granting broad legal immunity to the former President. A federal judge in Florida, who has for months moved very slowly in handling the criminal case charging Trump with… Read More

Lyle Denniston continues to write about the U.S. Supreme Court, although he “retired” at the end of 2019 following more than six decades on that news beat. He was there for three revolutions – civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights – and the start of a fourth, on transgender rights. His career of following the law began at the Otoe County Courthouse in his hometown, Nebraska City, Nebraska, in the fall of 1948. His online, eight-week, college-level course – “The Supreme Court and American Politics” – is available from the University of Baltimore Law School, and it is free.

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