Many other cases have stalled
The first criminal trial in US history against a former president resulted in a historic outcome — Donald Trump was found guilty by a jury in New York on all 34 charges in the case of concealing money. This judicial epic of the ex-president of America will continue on July 11. Then the final verdict must be made. Let's try to figure out what this threatens for Trump.
“Guilty of patriotism,” a collage with this inscription could be seen after the jury’s decision in New York on the Telegram channel of Trump’s most ardent supporter, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Of course, it was not only the far-right representatives of the Republican Party who were so sensitive to the outcome of Trump’s latest court case. House Speaker Mike Johnson said: “Today is a shameful day in American history. Democrats cheered the conviction of an opposition party leader on ridiculous charges based on the testimony of a disbarred and convicted felon. It was a purely political event, not a legal one.”
In general, of course, it is impossible not to agree with this statement. The approach of the decisive day of the presidential election provokes both sides to raise the stakes. Any means, as you know, are good. And even more so when it comes to American politics. But I can’t believe that this is a final decision that will undermine all Trump’s plans for his future.
First things first. Former President Donald Trump was found guilty of all 34 counts in a criminal trial for hush-up payments in New York. He was accused of falsifying business records to conceal payments to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
Now, in the unique position of being the first former US president to be convicted of a felony, Trump faces the prospect of prison time imprisonment or probation for their crimes.
But Trump is known for his endless appeals and will most likely take advantage of this bonus this time too. This could significantly delay his sentencing, which is scheduled for July 11.
Judge Juan Merchan will decide the final verdict. He could sentence Trump to probation or up to 4 years in prison on each count, up to a total of no more than 20 years.
As we noted above, Trump can appeal the jury's decision. He's done this before, and the New York case is no different. Shortly after Trump was found guilty, his lawyer Todd Blanche asked Merchan to drop the charges against his client despite the guilty verdict. The judge, however, rejected it.
As CNN notes, Trump's legal team has taken other steps throughout the trial to preserve its right to appeal a potential conviction, reviewing the judge's rulings on the testimony and evidence. They will almost certainly file such an appeal in the coming weeks.
The whole affair is also unlikely to have any impact on Trump's presidential ambitions. UCLA law professor Richard L. Hasen, one of America's leading experts on election law, has repeatedly said that nothing in the U.S. Constitution prohibits a convicted felon from running for the nation's highest office.
“Legally, nothing changes with Trump’s status as a candidate. The Constitution contains only limited requirements to run for office (at least 35 years of age, a natural-born citizen, and a resident of the United States for at least 14 years),” Hasen wrote in his voting rights blog on Thursday.
Additionally , individual states cannot throw Trump out of the presidential race as they try to overturn the 2020 election results due to a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.
As for Trump’s right to vote in elections, the situation here is also not so clear-cut. The ex-president is a resident of Florida. In the Sunshine State, felons are prohibited from voting until they have served their full sentence and paid the applicable fines and fees.
Florida's voting bans in criminal cases apply to people convicted out of state. However, if a convicted Florida resident is out of state, Florida will follow that state's laws regarding how the offender can regain their voting rights.
In New York, under a 2021 law, people with felony convictions crimes, regain the right to vote after completing their prison sentence — even if they are still subject to parole. This means that Trump will be denied the right to vote in Florida only if he is serving a prison sentence on a Manhattan conviction at the time of the election.
Trump's conviction means little for his other three criminal cases, which will continue as before he was found guilty in the New York case.
Trump's criminal case for subversion of federal elections has been suspended while the U.S. Supreme Court considers his claims of presidential immunity.
The judge in his Florida secret documents case put the trial on hold indefinitely.
And the election interference case in Georgia is in legal limbo, while Trump and several of his co-defendants try to disqualify the Atlanta prosecutor who brought the charges.
It turns out that it is important for Trump to buy time, which he is doing very well. Appeals, by the way, the Wall Street Journal writes about this, can take months or even years. The newspaper believes that Trump has no chance of life within the walls of a penitentiary. “Your home is a prison,” as they said in one famous Soviet film, is not about the 45th president of the United States. Moreover, he had no previous problems with the law.
The Washington Post only clarifies that in any case, Trump will have to undergo a humiliating procedure in the probation department, which prepares recommendation reports for judges. There, the defendant will be asked for details of his biography, asked questions about mental health and the circumstances that brought him to this life.
And, of course, much will depend on the judge, who is entrusted with the special mission of assessing all the circumstances given the apparent lack of remorse.
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