DA has unusual ideas to halt Trump hush money case while upholding historic conviction
One suggestion is for any future sentence to not include prison time; another is based on how some courts handle cases when defendants die
Eager to preserve US president-elect Donald Trump’s hush money conviction even as he returns to office, prosecutors are suggesting various ways forward – including one based on how some courts handle criminal cases when defendants die.
Trump’s spokesman called the ideas “pathetic”.
In court papers made public on Tuesday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office proposed an array of options for keeping the historic conviction on the books.
The proposals include freezing the case until Trump is out of office, or agreeing that any future sentence would not include jail time. Another idea: Closing the case with a notation that acknowledges his conviction but says that he was never sentenced and that his appeal was not resolved because of presidential immunity.
The last is adopted from what some states do when a criminal defendant dies after being convicted but before appeals are exhausted. It is unclear whether that option is viable under New York law, but prosecutors suggested that Judge Juan M. Merchan could innovate in what is already a unique case.
“This remedy would prevent defendant from being burdened during his presidency by an ongoing criminal proceeding,” prosecutors wrote. But at the same time, it wouldn’t “precipitously discard” the “meaningful fact that defendant was indicted and found guilty by a jury of his peers”.
