More on Trump v. New York

Following up on posts here and here, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of President-elect Trump’s sentencing in New York 5-4. The order reads:

The application for stay presented to Justice Sotomayor and by her referred to the Court is denied for, inter alia, the following reasons. First, the alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump’s state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal. Second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose a sentence of “unconditional discharge” after a brief virtual hearing.

Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Kavanaugh would grant the application.

The hearing then went forward. The WSJ has this story.

As I mentioned in one of the previous posts, the immunity claim wasn’t the strongest. The best federal claim, in my view, is the due process violation of the raging bias of the prosecutor.

To see the huge double standard between this case and other cases where prosecutors have been recused, see this letter brief that CJLF filed in the case of a Black Lives Matter protester who shattered the back window of a car, showering a young child with broken glass. The prosecutor was recused for statements that were not directed at the defendants individually but only at people who commit lawless acts, plus a few other items, all of which pale in comparison to Alvin Bragg’s campaign promise to “get” one particular named person, Donald Trump. Yet the California Supreme Court let the BLM recusal stand.

The New York courts should have removed Bragg right out of the gate. We will see what happens as this case works its way up the appeal process.