Legal analyst Andrew McCarthy says New York Judge Juan Merchan had little choice but to delay former President Trump’s sentencing. But the judge’s explanation for why he did it made no sense and continued his pattern of bias against Trump.
In postponing former President Donald Trump’s sentencing until after the 2024 election, Judge Juan Merchan did the right thing for the wrong reasons. This is apparent from his setting of a sentencing day on Nov. 26, even though – according to the four-page letter to counsel he made public today – Merchan is delaying his ruling on Trump’s immunity claim until Nov. 12.
To my mind, Trump is correct that proceeding with the scheduled Sept. 18 sentencing would have been gratuitous interference in the 2024 election. There was no rule-of-law reason why Trump, a major-party nominee, needed to be sentenced in the stretch run of the presidential campaign. And note that, until today’s postponement, Judge Merchan seemed insistent on sentencing Trump just as early voting begins (on September 16) in Pennsylvania, the most pivotal of the battleground states.
While Trump has been found guilty of 34 felony charges, the business-records offense is a non-violent crime that is normally a misdemeanor in New York (and normally not charged at all by Manhattan’s paragon progressive prosecutor, Alvin Bragg). And while 34 counts sounds impressive, the number is high only because Bragg unethically parsed what should have been no more than a handful of counts by charging each scrap of paper as a separate four-year felony – aggregating to 136 years of potential imprisonment!
This was done to make Trump look like a career criminal. But the offense at issue is comparatively trivial, given that, along with Trump’s lack of a criminal record, he was clearly going to get bail pending appeal regardless of what sentence was imposed. That appeal could take years to resolve, and it is probable (in my view) that the guilty verdicts will be reversed on appeal – if they are not vacated even earlier (more on that momentarily).
Hence, there should have been no rush to impose sentence prior to the election.
