President-elect Donald Trump came to the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning, asking the justices to halt the criminal sentencing scheduled for Friday morning in his New York hush money case. In a 40-page filing signed by John Sauer, Trump’s intended nominee for solicitor general, Trump urged the court to put the proceedings on hold to allow him to appeal. “Forcing President Trump to prepare for a criminal sentencing in a felony case while he is preparing to lead the free world as President of the United States in less than two weeks imposes an intolerable, unconstitutional burden on him that undermines these vital national interests,” Trump wrote.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who handles emergency appeals from New York, directed the prosecutors to respond to Trump’s request by Thursday at 10 a.m.
Trump was found guilty in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide reimbursements made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. The judge in the case, Juan Merchan, has indicated that he does not intend to sentence Trump to jail time, but instead plans to give Trump an “unconditional discharge” – which would mean that Trump would not face any serious punishment, but the fact of his conviction would remain.
Trump sought dismissal of the charges against him, arguing (among other things) that he should not be sentenced because he is the president-elect and that the charges against him were politically motivated. In Wednesday’s filing at the Supreme Court, Trump cited the justices’ decision last year in Trump v. United States, arguing that the criminal proceedings in state court should be put on hold while his claims of the presidential immunity granted in that decision are addressed.
In an opinion on Jan. 3, Merchan rejected Trump’s plea that requiring him to appear for sentencing would make it more difficult for him to perform his duties. “[A]ll that remains outstanding in this case,” Merchan observed, “is the issuance of this Decision and the imposition of sentence.”
Merchan also emphasized that Trump himself had sought to have sentencing put off until after the November election. “Thus,” he wrote, “it was fair for this Court to trust that his request to adjourn sentencing until after the election carried with it the implied consent that he would face sentence during the window between the election and the taking of the oath of office.” And he added that he would permit Trump to appear virtually, to “assuage” Trump’s “concerns regarding the mental and physical demands” placed on him during the run-up to his inauguration.
On Jan. 6, Merchan rejected Trump’s request to put his ruling on hold. One day later, a state appeals judge, Ellen Gesmer, denied Trump’s request to stop the Jan. 10 sentencing. Trump indicated in his appeal to the Supreme Court that he is also seeking emergency relief at the same time in the New York Court of Appeals, that state’s highest court.
Trump first argued that Merchan should have set aside the jury’s verdict against him because prosecutors relied on evidence of Trump’s official acts – such as Trump’s posts on the social-platform X, then known as Twitter. The use of those posts, Trump said, conflicted with the court’s July 1 decision in Trump v. United States. Merchan instead concluded, Trump wrote, that the posts used at Trump’s trial were “entirely personal in nature” and did not “advance a policy concern or other public interest.”
Trump next asserted that after he was elected in November “in a historic landslide victory,” he became entitled to immunity from “criminal process.” (Trump won the popular vote by approximately 1.5%, and his victory in the electoral college, 312 electoral votes, was “in the lower half of U.S. presidential elections,” according to CNN.) Moreover, he complained, Merchan scheduled sentencing for Jan. 10, 2025, a date “not only at the apex of the Presidential Transition period, but even after President Trump’s electoral college victory has been certified by Congress.”
In the presidential immunity case, Trump contended, the justices made clear that a claim based on presidential immunity can be immediately appealed before any additional criminal proceedings can go forward, and “its logic dictates that this” immediate appeal “must be accompanied by an automatic stay of trial-court proceedings while that” appeal is considered.
This post is also published on SCOTUSblog.
