Judge Juan Merchan has denied Trump's post-trial motions and proposes to sentence him on January 10th, before his inauguration. While signalling a potential conditional discharge with no prison time, the judge emphasized the importance of addressing the sentencing before Trump assumes office.
In what appears to be a bid to ensure that President-elect Trump enters office as a formally convicted felon, Judge Juan Merchan has denied Trump’s post-trial motions and proposes to sentence him next Friday, January 10. The bait for Trump to agree to this is that Judge Merchan is signaling that the sentence will be a conditional discharge – meaning the president-elect would face no prison time and no post-sentence monitoring (such as probation).
Moreover, because the imposition of sentence and entry of the judgment would end the proceedings in the trial court, Trump would be free to commence his appeal of what would be 34 felony convictions on the charge of business-records falsification. I do not believe Trump will agree to this; instead, I suspect he will seek an immediate appeal on the immunity claims that Merchan conclusively rejected in today’s 18-page opinion and order. It is not surprising that Merchan denied Trump’s immunity claims; he had already ruled against Trump on this point in an opinion issued on December 16. In prior proceedings, Manhattan’s elected progressive Democratic district attorney, Alvin Bragg, appeared to acknowledge that Trump would likely have a right to appeal an immunity ruling against him prior to being sentenced. That is no doubt why, rather than push for a sentencing date, Bragg’s prosecutors proposed that the case be frozen – held in abeyance while Trump served his four-year presidential term. In that scenario, the case would theoretically to resume in 2029 (when Trump would be 82-years-old) with final presentencing rulings, the imposition of sentence and entry of the judgment of conviction, and the appeal. In Friday afternoon’s ruling, Merchan rejected that proposal, claiming that he had a responsibility to sentence Trump prior to inauguration, lest what the judge frames as an important public interest in getting the sentencing done were undermined
TRUMP SENTENCING JUDGE MARCHAN BUSINESS RECORDS IMMUNITY CLAIMS POLITICS
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