(Photo by Yuki Iwamura-Pool/Getty Images)
Donald Trump got what he wanted. Again.
This afternoon New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan granted the former president’s request to delay his sentencing until after the presidential election.
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“The Court is a fair, impartial, and apolitical institution,” he 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.”
The judge appeared to concede that this decision was taken wholly in deference to the political calendar, noting that “any adjournment, of even one week beyond September 18, will bring us within approximately 41 days of the 2024 presidential election.” But he immediately contradicted himself, likening the decision to postponements routinely granted to any defendant.
“Given the unique facts and circumstances of this case, there is no reason why this Defendant should be treated any differently than any other,” he says, paradoxically.
And so Trump will be sentenced on November 26 for 34 counts of creating a false business record to cover up the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. Or perhaps not at all, if the court grants Trump’s motion to dismiss the indictment on grounds of presidential immunity.
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Meanwhile, the Second Circuit has referred Trump’s attempt to get into federal court to the motions panel sitting on Tuesday. That’s the appeal of the “remand order” from Judge Hellerstein that wasn’t a remand at all. In reality, the district judge denied Trump’s petition to move for federal removal outside the timeframe contemplated by the statute. There was nothing to remand, because the case was never in federal court — or at least not since June of 2023 when Judge Hellerstein actually did remand it.
The district judge noted as much this morning when he dismissed Trump’s motion for stay filed in his own court simultaneously with the windmill tilt at the Second Circuit.
“Since I denied leave to file for removal, and thus there has been no removal petition properly filed, there is no action in my order of [September] 3, 2024 to stay,” Judge Hellerstein wrote. “The motion is denied as academic.”
Of course, it’s more academic than ever now, thanks to Justice Merchan, since the whole purpose of the exercise was to avoid having to show up in court for sentencing on the 18th. But presumably Trump’s lawyers will still show up Tuesday to make their bizarroworld argument anyway.
People of The State of New York v. Trump [District Docket via Court Listener]
People of The State of New York v. Trump [Circuit Docket via Court Listener]
People of The State of New York v. Trump [State Docket]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.