Left to right: Donald Trump (AP Photo/Mike Roemer), New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan (AP Photo/Seth Wenig), Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II).
There is still no word Friday from New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan on whether he will agree to delay former President Donald Trump’s sentencing following his conviction of 34 counts of falsification of business records following his hush-money and election interference jury trial in Manhattan.
The Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling has wreaked havoc on Trump’s case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and in other venues where the former president is criminally charged.
But in New York, the only venue where Trump was charged and convicted, defense attorneys Emil Bove and Todd Blanche contend that the high court’s ruling has effectively put a damper on any “official acts” they argue were presented in evidence. The immunity decision translates to the guilty verdict being overturned or at the very least, they have argued, it should warrant a new trial where protected “official” conduct would not be admitted.
Trump, Blanche and Bove insist the former president may not be prosecuted for exercising his “core constitutional powers.”
Merchan’s silence on the request to delay sentencing currently set for Sept. 18 may indicate the judge is methodically poring over this decision. Bragg wasn’t much help: while he scoffed at Trump’s “bizarre” arguments to delay until after the election, he also didn’t stand in the way.
The wisdom on whether Trump should be sentenced without delay was explored this week by Law&Crime in an op-ed from trial lawyer and legal analyst Bradford Cohen.
Cohen, with his 27 years handling white-collar cases in federal and state courts, said he felt confident the right course of action would be to continue sentencing until after the presidential election.
“Most attorneys will agree,” he said, noting that the trial was “marred by procedural irregularities and concerns of prosecutorial overreach.”
Merchan is expected to issue his ruling on the immunity issue on Sept. 12 — just four days before sentencing. Cohen argues that whatever his ruling is, it would dictate whether appellate issues could be raised that would, and once again, delay sentencing.
At least one legal analyst feels differently: Norman Eisen, the co-founder and a board member of State Democracy Defenders Action and the Brookings Institute senior fellow and legal analyst, argued in an op-ed for MSNBC on Aug. 20 that there is no cause to delay because the Manhattan case concerned unofficial conduct: a presidential candidate who conspired to interfere in the 2016 election by covering up payments he made to a porn star and then falsifying those records is not conduct covered by the “official” category.
Whatever lawyers and legal experts may think, it will be Merchan who makes the call and by Monday, there will be only 70 days left until Election Day.
Law&Crime takes a look at this and other key developments in Trump’s cases in New York, Florida, Georgia, and Washington, D.C.
