Trump's New York Sentencing Must Proceed

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

51% : When it comes to Trump, the New York case may be the rule of law's last stand.
43% : He could impose a fine and/or sentence Trump to probation, suspending the service of any probationary period until Trump leaves office.
39% : But any potential trial of Trump is sure, at a minimum, to be postponed until he is out of office -- and who knows whether there will be any appetite to pursue the case at that point.
39% : Even if Trump ends up with no substantial sentence, that's an important legal and historical statement.
39% : That can proceed with almost no involvement from Trump himself.
38% : Trump is not yet the president.
35% : As president, Trump is sure to swiftly kill off the two pending federal prosecutions -- the classified-documents case in Florida and the January 6 case in D.C.
34% : Quinta Jurecic: Bye-bye, Jack SmithOnce in office, Trump may cancel federal prosecutions of himself and his allies.
32% : In the unlikely event of Merchan trying to jail Trump immediately, a higher court would undoubtedly intervene.
30% : That doesn't mean they didn't happen or that Trump is not legally and morally responsible.
30% : Even if the current Justice Department were to attempt to keep the cases alive somehow -- such as by merely agreeing to pause them until Trump is out of office in four years -- the new Trump Justice Department will simply dismiss them.
30% : Once Trump was in office, even if the convictions were affirmed, the state presumably would not be allowed to jail the sitting president.
30% : He could even impose a jail sentence but similarly suspend that until Trump is no longer president.
29% : Trump may pardon his co-defendants and co-conspirators, and may even try to pardon himself.
29% : Unlike with the federal cases, Trump cannot unilaterally make the state prosecutions go away.
26% : And although Trump is arguing that a few items of evidence in his trial should have been barred by immunity, those claims are unlikely to derail the convictions.
26% : If Merchan were inclined to sentence Trump to prison, he would likely stay that sentence pending appeal.
25% : In May, a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts related to falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to the adult-film star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election.
10% : David A. Graham: The twisted logic of Trump's attacks on judgesThe defense may be suggesting that if Trump were sentenced to prison, that would interfere with his duties.

*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.