The Supreme Court rejected an extreme long-shot attempt by Missouri to intervene in Donald Trump’s New York criminal case. That state wanted to sue the state of New York and block the former president’s gag order and upcoming sentencing following his guilty verdicts on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The high court denied Missouri’s motion Monday without explanation, though Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito noted in the order that they would have let the state file its complaint. While the two justices have recently sided with Trump, they have also previously signaled their disagreement with colleagues over the broader procedural issue of hearing lawsuits between states, indicating that they think the court must take such cases. This sort of case is different from the typical appeal at the Supreme Court, instead falling under the court’s “original” jurisdiction for suits between states.
“New York’s prosecution of the presumptive Republican nominee is a transparent attempt to prevent the candidate disfavored by New York from freely campaigning,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, wrote to the justices last month, adding that it “threatens both the sovereign rights of Missouri and the constitutional rights of millions of its citizens.”
This sort of case is different … falling under the court’s ‘original’ jurisdiction for suits between states.
New York Attorney General Letitia James opposed Missouri’s action, writing to the justices that “Missouri’s suit is based entirely on an ongoing criminal case between the Manhattan DA and former President Trump and does not present an actual controversy between sovereign States.”
Trump is due to be sentenced in New York next month, but not before Judge Juan Merchan decides how, if at all, the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling affects Trump’s state guilty verdicts. Merchan is expected to rule on the immunity issue Sept. 6 and sentence Trump on Sept. 18 if he rejects Trump’s immunity motion. The GOP presidential nominee also recently lost a New York state court appeal challenging his gag order ahead of sentencing. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for updates and expert analysis on the top legal stories. The newsletter will return to its regular weekly schedule when the Supreme Court’s next term kicks off in October.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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