Merchan might throw out the conviction due to the Supreme Court ruling that a president has “at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”. //

retiredcantbefired | November 7, 2024 at 6:10 pm
Why won’t Merchan uphold the conviction and then sentence Trump to as much prison time as he can pile on?

Hasn’t that always been the aim? //

TargaGTS in reply to retiredcantbefired. | November 7, 2024 at 6:23 pm
He could do that. But, because immunity claims are immediately appealable. He can sentence Trump to prison but that sentence would immediately be stayed by an appellate court pending appellate review. In fact, had SCOTUS issued their presidential immunity opinion prior to trial starting, that immunity claim as applied to the facts of this case would have had to have been settled prior to the trial starting. The thought process is, if someone is immune from prosecution, it’s not enough to keep them out of prison. It must be a prohibition on the process of the prosecution itself. //

PrincetonAl | November 7, 2024 at 6:14 pm
Merchan isn’t going to do anything for Trump’s benefit. He would do this for Democrats benefit.

The strategy would be rather than having this thrown out on appeal in NY, complain about the Supreme Court and throw it out pre-emptively. A NY state Court loss does the Democrats no good.

This would allow them to further attempt to undermine the Supreme Court and the immunity decision (which was a very reasonable one)

If he does it, that is why. //

Hodge | November 7, 2024 at 9:26 pm
The conviction was a political gambit to influence the election, and indeed almost every single one of my Democrat friends mentioned at least once in every conversation, so arguably it did have some impact.

However, it didn’t have enough impact; Trump won.

So, now the question is, what is the best path for the Democrats in winding this thing up? Trump will not run again and this makes the exercise rather pointless. Further, there seems to be some reason to believe that when this case reaches the Federal appeals level it will be exposed as legally insufficient, and keeping it in the limelight may more publicly expose questionable decisions and actions by the key players.

So, it may be better for Merchan to toss the whole thing, while blaming the Supremes for protecting Trump. The Democrats like to claim that the court in in the bag for Republicans, so that would play nicely to their base as an excuse while allowing Merchan to continue as a judge without any picky picky investigations into his conduct.