Trump Seeks Delay of Sentencing (Does Judge Merchan Expect to Lose This Fight?)

Yesterday I wrote about Trump’s attempt to put an end to his New York conviction. The backstory is that Judge Merchan announced last week that a sentencing in the case would take place this Friday. Merchan seems to have chosen that date knowing that once Trump is sworn into office, this case is effectively over. He’s trying to get the sentencing in just under the wire.

Yesterday, Trump appealed to Judge Merchan to reconsider and, as expected, the judge said no. Today, Trump’s legal team is taking his case to an appellate court.

President-elect Donald Trump tried again Tuesday to delay this week’s sentencing in his hush money case, asking a New York appeals court to intervene as he fights to avoid the finality of his conviction before he returns to the White House.

Trump turned to the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court a day after the trial judge, Judge Juan M. Merchan, rebuffed his bid to indefinitely postpone sentencing and ordered it to go ahead as scheduled on Friday.

Trump is seeking an immediate stay that would spare him from being sentenced while he appeals Merchan’s decision last week to uphold the historic verdict.

The expectation is that a single judge will hear the request and issue a response today. If Trump gets a stay from the appeals court judge, that would probably be enough to push this back past his inauguration.

An emergency request like this one will fall to a single judge, who is expected to hold a brief hearing early Tuesday afternoon. That appellate judge could then issue a ruling before the end of the day.

If the judge grants an interim stay, it might effectively scuttle any chance of sentencing Mr. Trump. A full panel of appellate judges might not have time to take up the matter before Friday, and the window to sentence Mr. Trump is rapidly closing. Once he returns to the White House, Mr. Trump cannot face criminal prosecution.

Even if Trump doesn’t get a stay from the New York appeals court, he has other appeals options left to him including going to a federal court or even the Supreme Court.

I’ve read the opinions of several different legal experts on what happens next and they are all over the map. As I noted last week, Jonathan Turley thought Trump would have a difficult time stopping the sentencing from taking place this Friday. However, MSNBC‘s legal correspondent argued yesterday that Judge Merchan’s decision reads like his last word in this case.

…it’s not at all clear to me that Merchan actually expects to hold a sentencing hearing on Jan. 10 or at any other time. What makes me say this? His own opinion…

MSNBC legal analyst Kristy Greenberg, a former Manhattan-based federal prosecutor of many years, observed that sections of the opinion themselves sound like what judges say at sentencing proceedings. For example, rejecting Trump’s argument that the crimes for which he was convicted are comparably not so grave, Merchan castigated Trump for the “premeditated and continuous deception” that underlie his conviction on 34 counts of falsification of business records with the intent to defraud, including “an intent to commit or conceal a conspiracy to promote a presidential election by unlawful means.”…

Do those words read as if Merchan understood, when calibrating his opinion, that because of Trump’s expected appellate efforts, this could be his last public statement in Trump’s case? They sure do.

She concludes by saying, “I’m expecting a flurry of activity in New York appeals courts this week — and that none of it will end in a sentencing.”

No sentencing before Jan. 20 means this case ends with Trump never formally becoming a felon. All it would take to get there is one decision delaying this sentencing by 10 days and he’s off the hook for good because no one really thinks this case will return after he leaves office. Judge Merchan may have anticipated that outcome which is why his decision reads like a sentencing statement.

I’ll update this story if we get a decision from the appellate court today.