Guest Opinion: Don't blame Supreme Court for timing of Trump's case, by Noah Feldman

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

48% : And the timing of the late-April hearing does help Trump, since it means the court's decision is likely to come in late June and his trial will have to start even later.
41% : And it would be unfair to assert that the court is hearing oral arguments -- rather than letting the lower court's ruling stand -- because it wants to buy more time for Trump.
41% : Trump made his immunity arguments to the federal district court and then to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
41% : Trump, of course, is not in office now.
38% : Smith's team indicted Trump on Jan. 6-related charges on Aug. 1, 2023.
34% : What we need now from the Supreme Court is clarity and wisdom about why Trump does not merit criminal immunity.
27% : In contrast, Trump isn't currently violating any direct judicial order in the Jan. 6 case.
26% : The justices announced last week that it would be late April before they considered whether Trump should be immune from being prosecuted for crimes committed while in office, his defense against the Jan. 6 charges.
25% : The appellate court decided that Trump did not have immunity on Feb. 6, 2024, teeing up the issue for the Supreme Court.
24% : But it is the timing of the prosecution, not the Supreme Court's calendar, that explains why the timeline is now so short to get Trump tried before Election Day.
20% : Consider the court's landmark decision allowing a civil suit against Bill Clinton while he was president, for conduct against Paula Jones before he moved into the White House.
16% : The conduct for which Trump is being tried took place on Jan. 6, 2021.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.