Judge Juan Merchan has agreed to delay Donald Trump’s sentencing in New York until after the election, showing the latest way that the GOP presidential nominee has benefited from the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
Trump’s lawyers cited the ruling in seeking to push the Sept. 18 sentencing. Merchan had previously set Sept. 16 to rule on Trump’s motion to overturn his guilty verdicts based on the immunity ruling, and his lawyers signaled to the judge that if he rules against them on that motion, then they’ll immediately appeal prior to sentencing.
On Friday, Merchan said he will now decide whether to set aside the guilty verdicts on Nov. 12 and then proceed to sentencing (if necessary) on Nov. 26. Election day is Nov. 5.
Merchan postponed the matter reluctantly, writing to the parties on Friday that doing so would avoid any appearance — “however unwarranted,” the judge wrote — that the proceeding had been affected by or sought to affect the election.
“The Court is a fair, impartial, and apolitical institution,” Merchan wrote. “Adjourning decision on the motion and sentencing, if such is required, should dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or to create a disadvantage for, any political party and/or any candidate for any office.” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg didn’t fight Trump’s delay bid, instead deferring to the judge in a manner that seemingly made it easier for Merchan to grant Trump’s request. The Sept. 18 date was already a delayed one, following the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling in Trump v. United States, which raised the question of whether, in retrospect, state prosecutors improperly introduced official-act evidence to prove Trump’s guilt and, if so, what effect that had on the guilty verdicts reached in May before the immunity ruling. 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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