Judge Delays Trump Sentencing in New York Case

Justice Juan Merchan poses in his chambers in New York City on March 14, 2024. (Seth Wenig/AP Photo)

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan on July 2 delayed the sentencing of former President Donald Trump “to September 18, 2024,at 10:00 AM for the imposition of sentence, if such is still necessary, or other proceedings.”

The parties had requested permission to argue over the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on presidential immunity, and the judge granted the requests. The defense has a July 10 deadline to file a motion and prosecutors have a July 24 deadline to file a response. The judge also granted a separate request by prosecutors to submit a recommendation for sentencing.

Attorneys for former President Trump are moving to throw out the New York criminal trial, while prosecutors say they believe the argument has no merit.

“The verdicts in this case violate the presidential immunity doctrine and create grave risks of ‘an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself,’” defense attorneys wrote in a July 1 letter to the judge, seeking permission to file a motion to throw out the verdict by July 10, one day before the scheduled sentencing hearing.

In New York, former President Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree and a jury returned a guilty verdict in May. The 34 documents that were found to be falsified were created in 2017, while President Trump was in office, though his attorneys are not arguing that the Trump Organization checks the president signed were official duties.

Argument Over Official Acts

In March, defense attorneys moved to limit the scope of evidence in the New York case to exclude the president’s official acts. Justice Merchan had denied the motion as “untimely,” doubting the defense’s good faith basis. The judge found that the defense could have filed the motion when they sought to remove the case to federal court, or by the deadline for motions to limit evidence used at trial, or when they sought to dismiss the former president’s federal criminal case in the District of Columbia based on presidential immunity.

Defense attorneys said the judge ruled incorrectly and explained that the deadlines he spoke of did not apply to motions to preclude evidence. The judge responded that he could rule on objections based on presidential immunity during the trial.

Now the defense is arguing that despite the objections, prejudicial statements and evidence were presented by the district attorney at trial.

Prosecutors described an event in the Oval Office as “devastating” and introduced statements by the president and witness testimony about working for the president in the White House, the defense argued.

“This official-acts evidence should never have been put before the jury,” defense attorneys argued.

The Supreme Court held that a president “may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.” Prosecutors would have to rebut the presumptive immunity for official acts before he could be charged for them.

Prosecutors, in a brief letter, noted that they believed the new argument to throw out the verdict is meritless, and requested the customary two weeks to file a response to the defense’s motion. If the judge grants the requests, the Trump attorneys would file their motion July 10 and prosecutors would file a response by July 24, delaying the sentencing for at least two weeks.