Trump's Real Felony Sentence: The Jury's Verdict Hasn't Been Erased

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

85% : During his address, Merchan described People v. Trump as a "truly extraordinary" but ultimately mundane case.
58% : That said, Trump may also calculate that he already has four justices firmly on his side, and needs only one more - since the four dissenters would have taken the extraordinary step of stopping the state court hearing in its tracks, and the majority voted only to wait to decide whether to address the legal arguments after today's hearing.
55% : And so, Trump and his attorney Todd Blanche appeared this morning in court from Florida via CCTV, framing their camera to include two large American flags in the background.
55% : After Merchan's final remarks, the court cut off the feed, allowing Trump to prepare his inauguration in just 10 days.
54% : "Merchan began his address immediately after Trump delivered a speech with a litany of complaints about the proceedings.
53% : In a rare decision, Merchan released an audio recording from that day's hearing in People v. Trump -- for now, giving himself the last word.
47% : "In fact, the prospect of imposing sentence on President Trump just before he assumes Office as the 47th President raises the specter of other possible restrictions on liberty, such as travel, reporting requirements, registration, probationary requirements, and others -- all of which would be constitutionally intolerable under the doctrine of Presidential immunity," Sauer wrote to stave off the hearing.
47% : "There was unprecedented media attention, public interest, and heightened security involving various agencies, and yet, the trial was a bit of a paradox because once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself was no more special, unique, or extraordinary than the other 32 criminal trials that took place in this courthouse at the same exact time," Merchan said.
42% : (If this five vote majority persists when the Court next hears this case or other important matters adverse to Trump, the short opinion rejecting a stay could be remembered as the start of something significant.)
41% : Despite the "extraordinary breadth of protections" afforded by the office of the presidency, which the U.S. Supreme Court expanded in another Trump case last summer, Merchan declared, "one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict.""Premeditated and Continuous Deception"On May 30, 2024, a jury unanimously found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in an illegal effort to cover up payments to Stormy Daniels from voters before the 2016 presidential election.
40% : From the unusual deference to the defendant on the screen, and the non-jail sentence, it might have seemed that Trump had won the day, though the existence of the proceedings -- and the events that led up to it since Trump's indictment in April 2023 -- stood as a testament of his defeat before the jury.
35% : The proceedings took just over half an hour, and Trump used the opportunity to rail against the "political witch hunt."
34% : "A running theme of the prosecutor's address was Trump's "unrelenting" and "unsubstantiated attacks upon this court and his family, individual prosecutors and their families, the witnesses, the grand jury, the trial jury and the justice system as a whole," a campaign that led Merchan to impose a gag order and find Trump in contempt of it 10 times.
31% : "The word "specter" gave away Sauer's rhetorical move, and with the unconditional discharge formally entered, Trump will experience few tangible consequences of his felony convictions.
28% : Trump and his lawyer did not mention any of these potential inconveniences once during their remarks.
27% : (On Nov. 14, Trump nominated Blanche to serve as the deputy attorney general at his Department of Justice, which includes the responsibility for overseeing its criminal cases.
23% : On Thursday, Trump learned that he may have five votes against him at the Supreme Court, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the liberals in rejecting the application to stop the sentencing.
22% : "This has been a very terrible experience," Trump said at the start of his remarks.
22% : In order to grant the stay, Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas had to find a likelihood that Trump would succeed on the merits, and the other justices did not mention the merits at all in rejecting Trump's application.
16% : For the last week, President-elect Donald Trump's defense attorneys submitted hundreds of pages of legal arguments in four courts from New York City to Albany to Washington, D.C., to stop a virtual sentencing where Trump faced no real risk of imprisonment, fine, or probation.
14% : In New York, other convicted felons face restrictions on jury service, professional licensing, public benefits and eligibility for state public offices, which could have been a problem if Trump wanted to be mayor of New York, for example, but it will be no impediment for Trump becoming Commander in Chief.

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