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Trump’s Case in New York: What Happens Now?

Online Niel November 8, 2024

Q: What will happen in Donald Trump’s New York state criminal case now that he is president-elect?

A: Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on November 26, but the judge may decide that the sentence is no longer appropriate. If Trump receives a sentence, it could be appealed or the ruling could be delayed until 2029, when Trump is out of office.

COMPLETE QUESTION

What if Trump wins the election and then is convicted at the end of the month?

COMPLETE ANSWER

President-elect Donald Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan on Nov. 26 after he was convict in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal election law violations stemming from an effort to keep quiet an alleged extramarital affair. Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw Trump’s trial in New York, has already done so twice put off sentencing, which was originally scheduled for July 11.

Now that Trump has been elected the next US president, he may not be convicted at all.

Trump appears in court for his hush money trial in Manhattan Criminal Court on May 30, 2024 in New York City. Photo by Steven Hirsch-Pool/Getty Images.

Ahead of Trump’s Nov. 12 sentencing hearing, Merchan is programmed to decide whether to completely reject the underlying conviction a movement that Trump’s legal team filed after the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling that presidents have immunity for certain official actions while in office.

However, CNN did reported that before November 12, Trump’s lawyers plan to try to overturn the sentence by filing a motion “arguing that, as president-elect, he is entitled to the same constitutional protections as a sitting president and should be shielded from any action by state prosecutors.”

If either motion is granted, the charges will be dismissed.

“But if the judge decides to keep the conviction intact, the former president’s lawyers should ask Merchan to delay Trump’s sentence so he can appeal,” CNN said. “And if that’s not granted, his lawyers plan to appeal the immunity decision in state appeals courts and possibly all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to ask the courts to delay Trump’s sentencing until all appeals have been exhausted, which could take months.”

If Merchan continues with the sentence, he has several options, as I wrote.

Trump Could Get Jail Time, But It’s Not Likely Cheryl Bader, a clinical associate professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, told us in a June interview.

For a first-time offender with a low-level, nonviolent offense and an elderly person, “under any circumstances like that, there would be a relatively low chance of incarceration,” she said.

Other sentencing possibilities include probation or a “conditional discharge” with conditions other than incarceration or probation. The “simplest” option, she said, could be for the judge to fine Trump.

“He didn’t want to put his thumb on the scale during the election, but now that the election is over, it will be interesting to see if Judge Merchan feels any pull to delay the political process or if he sees this as perhaps the only opportunity as a judge to hold Trump accountable for his criminal behavior,” Bader said in a Nov. 7 email.

If any prison sentence is handed down, the judge could order that the sentence be imposed after Trump completes his four-year term as president in 2029. The Trump team could also appeal for a tiered sentence.

But some legal experts don’t see it going that way.

“I think any reasonable judge would not convict the president-elect,” said Jill Konviser, a retired judge from New York. Politico said for a story that said “the sentencing hearing in the hush money case almost certainly won’t happen.”

And Greg Germaina corporate attorney and law professor at Syracuse University, said Newsweek that the quiet money case must be “stayed” or stopped. “If Judge Merchan tries to go ahead, or even sets it up for sentencing, the Justice Department will step in and ultimately the Supreme Court will slap him down,” he said.

But Germain said he doesn’t think the judge will try to convict Trump.

Unlike the ongoing federal prosecutions against Trump i can’t forgive himself for state crimes.

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