Juan Merchan defends
the rule of law
Trump will be a
sentenced felon after all.
January
6, 2025 at 7:45 a.m. ESTToday at 7:45 a.m. EST
President-elect Donald Trump will
enter office as a convicted and sentenced criminal, provided the Supreme Court
does not once again swoop in to spare him the consequences of his illegal
conduct. The Post reported: “The decision to uphold
Trump’s conviction and schedule the sentencing for Jan. 10 almost certainly
means Trump will be the first felon to serve as a U.S. president.” That said,
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan strongly indicated Trump will face
no jail time or even probation.
Despite previewing a sentence without real punishment,
Merchan, to his credit, issued a blistering opinion reaffirming the foundation
of our legal system. “The significance of the fact that the verdict was handed
down by a unanimous jury of 12 of Defendant’s peers, after trial, cannot
possibly be overstated,” Merchan wrote. “Indeed, the sanctity of a jury verdict
and the deference that must be accorded to it, is a bedrock principle in our
Nation’s jurisprudence.” No conspiracy, no rogue district attorney delivered
the verdict. This was a jury of Trump’s peers whom he and his counsel approved
in voir dire.
Merchan also gave the back of the hand to the notion that
presidents-elect enjoy immunity. (We have, as the saying goes, only one
president at a time.) Merchan summed up:
Essentially, what Defendant asks this Court to do is to
create, or at least recognize, two types of Presidential immunity, then select
one as grounds to dismiss the instant matter. First, Defendant seeks
application of “President-elect immunity,” which presumably implicates all
actions of a President-elect before taking the oath of office. Thus, he argues
that since no sitting President can be the subject of any stage of a criminal
proceeding, so too should a President-elect be afforded the same protections.
Second, as the People characterize in their Response, Defendant seeks an action
by the Court akin to a “retroactive” form of Presidential immunity, thus giving
a defendant the ability to nullify verdicts lawfully rendered prior to a
defendant being elected President by virtue of being elected President. It
would be an abuse of discretion for this Court to create, or recognize, either
of these two new forms of Presidential immunity in the absence of legal
authority. The Defendant has presented no valid argument to convince this Court
otherwise.
Lastly, Merchan declined to dismiss the case in the
“interests of justice.” In some of the harshest language invoked against Trump
by any court, Merchan wrote:
Here, 12 jurors unanimously found Defendant guilty of 34
counts of falsifying business records with the intent to defraud, which
included an intent to commit or conceal a conspiracy to promote a presidential
election by unlawful means. It was the premediated and continuous deception by
the leader of the free world that is the gravamen of this offense. To vacate
this verdict on the grounds that the charges are insufficiently serious given
the position Defendant once held, and is about to assume again, would constitute
a disproportionate result and cause immeasurable damage to the citizenry’s
confidence in the Rule of Law.
(Merchan also noted that “a total of 22 witnesses testified
at trial, and over 500 exhibits [were] admitted, all of which supported the
jury’s verdict.”)
Merchan demolished Trump’s argument that his good character
(!) justified dismissal:
Defendant’s disdain for the Third Branch of government,
whether state or federal, in New York or elsewhere, is a matter of public
record. Indeed, Defendant has gone to great lengths to broadcast on social
media and other forums his lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries and
the justice system as a whole. In the case at bar, despite repeated
admonitions, this Court was left with no choice but to find the Defendant
guilty of 10 counts of Contempt for his repeated violations of this Court’s
Order Restricting Extrajudicial Statements (“Statements Order”), findings which
by definition mean that Defendant willingly ignored the lawful mandates of this
Court. An Order which Defendant continues to attack as “unlawful” and
“unconstitutional,” despite the fact that it has been challenged and upheld by
the Appellate Division First Department and the New York Court of Appeals, no
less than eight times.
Merchan drily observed that “Defendant’s character and
history vis-a-vis the Rule of Law and the Third Branch of government” hardly
weigh in favor of canceling the verdict.
Merchan’s unequivocal language is welcomed. “On the
positive side, Judge Merchan and [Manhattan District Attorney Alvin] Bragg have
pressed forward with the case, rightly brushing aside all the bogus arguments
about immunity and otherwise,” Norm Eisen, who reported from the courtroom and
wrote a book about the trial, tells me. “Those 34 Trump convictions for 2016
election interference and coverup ... are a permanent stain that the judge and
the DA are rightly refusing to erase.”
