On Thursday, July 11 — only four days before the start of the Republican National Convention — Justice Juan Merchan is scheduled to sentence former President Donald Trump on 34 criminal charges.
It remains to be seen what type of sentence the New York judge will impose, or how severe it will be. Merchan's options range from incarceration to home confinement to probation to community service.
According to The Hill's Alexander Bolton, GOP senators are "warning" Merchan "not to sentence former President Trump to prison or house arrest or take any other action that could disrupt the likely GOP nominee's ability to campaign ahead of the November election."
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Bolton notes, however, that Merchan has a reputation for being "tough on white-collar criminals."
In an article published on June 4, Bolton explains, "Republican senators warn any sentence that would impact Trump's mobility or ability to communicate with voters could seriously undermine voters' confidence in the fairness of the 2024 election. Legal experts predict Merchan won't sentence Trump to prison right before the convention, but some GOP lawmakers fear that scenario is possible given what they've seen of the prosecution and trial so far."
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have called for the U.S. Supreme Court needs to intervene. But Bolton points out that many legal scholars "don't expect nation's highest court to get involved in a state criminal matter."
Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University in Virginia, told The Hill, "There is no procedure for a case like this to go directly from a state trial court to the federal Supreme Court. There just isn't. So far, at least, there isn't really an issue of federal law here. You can try to concoct one, but that’s another obstacle to getting it to the Supreme Court at all."
The legal scholar added, "At the very least, I think the federal Supreme Court won't do anything unless and until this gets all the way to the New York State Supreme Court, or whatever is the highest New York court that would make a decision."
Similarly, former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade — a University of Michigan law professor and frequent legal analyst for MSNBC — told The Hill, "I see zero chance of the U.S. Supreme Court intervening in Donald Trump's conviction before the election. He must exhaust his appeals in the New York State court system, which will take more than a year. Even then, the case would reach the Supreme Court only if there is some issue of federal statutory or constitutional law."
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Read The Hill's full article at this link.
