Former US President Donald Trump comments as he leaves court after a jury found him guilty of all 34 felony counts in his criminal trial in the New York State Supreme Court on May 30, 2024.
Justin Lane | Via Reuters
A New York judge on Tuesday postponed the date of the verdict in the hush-money case against Donald Trump by more than two months, after the former president's lawyers filed a motion to appeal his conviction.
If Trump is convicted, it will happen on September 18, about seven weeks before the November 5 presidential election.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was previously scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. But Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan canceled that date in his order Tuesday, while granting a request by Trump's lawyers to file a motion to vacate his guilty plea.
The request was made in light of Monday's shocking Supreme Court ruling that declared former presidents entitled to “presumptive immunity” for any official acts performed while in office.
Trump's lawyers now have until July 10 to file a motion to set aside the hush-money ruling. Prosecutors who do not oppose Trump's bid to delay the sentencing date must file their response by July 24.
Merchan said he will make a decision on the matter no later than Sept. 6. Trump's sentencing will take place Sept. 18 at 10 a.m. ET, “if that is still necessary,” Merchan ruled.
The Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling immediately threatened to alter or undermine several of the many pending criminal cases against Trump.
The hush-money case, which will likely be the only one against Trump to go to trial before the Nov. 5 presidential election, ended May 30 with Trump's conviction on 34 counts of falsifying corporate records.
The case revolved around a $130,000 payment made just before the 2016 election to porn star Stormy Daniels, who says she had sex with Trump when he was married years earlier.
In a letter to Merchan on Monday, Trump's lawyers asked for a July 10 deadline to file a legal memo supporting their request to overturn the guilty plea.
And “due to the complexity of the issues presented,” they added, “President Trump does not object to a postponement of the July 11, 2024, date of the ruling to allow sufficient time for a full briefing, oral arguments, and decision.”
The attorneys argued in the letter that, under the Supreme Court's latest ruling, certain evidence prosecutors introduced during the trial “should never have been presented to the jury.”
“The rulings in this case violate the doctrine of presidential immunity and create serious risks of ‘a self-cannibalizing executive branch,’” they wrote, citing the majority opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts.
“After further briefings on these issues beginning on July 10, 2024, it will be clear that the outcome of the trial cannot stand,” Trump's lawyers wrote.
Manhattan prosecutors wrote to Merchan in a letter Tuesday saying they believe Trump's arguments are without merit.
But “we do not oppose his request for leave to proceed with the trial and his purported request for a stay of sentencing pending the determination of his motion,” prosecutors wrote.
The Supreme Court ruling is part of a separate criminal case accusing Trump of unlawfully conspiring to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
That case stalled for months as Trump and special counsel Jack Smith wrestled with the question of whether former presidents are immune from prosecution for their official actions.
Judges in the federal district court and federal appeals circuit in Washington, DC, had rejected Trump's claim of “absolute immunity” for all official acts.
But the Supreme Court's six-member conservative majority overturned those decisions, ruling Monday that former presidents have “at least presumptive immunity from prosecution” for those actions.
That immunity applies “unless the government can demonstrate that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would not create 'dangers of infringement on the authority and functions of the executive branch,'” Roberts wrote.
The majority also appeared to limit the evidence that can be used in a criminal prosecution of a former president, even if he is accused only of unofficial conduct.
Using evidence of official conduct in such a prosecution would defeat the intended purpose of the president's immunity, Roberts wrote, “and thereby increase the likelihood that the president's official decision-making will be distorted.”
The decision prompted a fierce response from the court's three liberal justices, including Sonia Sotomayor, who expressed “fear for our democracy” in a scathing dissent.
