Manhattan prosecutors have opposed President-elect Donald Trump’s attempt to dismiss his conviction on 34 felony counts due to his presidential victory. However, they indicated in a filing on Tuesday that they would be amenable to delaying his sentencing until after he leaves office or even concluding the case without sentencing him at all.
Trump is seeking to have his conviction overturned on the grounds of ‘presidential immunity,’ arguing that the legal proceedings against him must cease now that he has been elected president.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which initiated the case, stated in Tuesday’s filing that the charges should not be dismissed and that Trump should still be sentenced. They argued that Trump does not have immunity before taking office and that even as president, it does not warrant the extreme measure of nullifying the jury’s unanimous guilty verdict and erasing the completed phases of the criminal proceedings.
Nonetheless, prosecutors agreed that if Trump is not sentenced by the time he assumes office, which is likely, he should be granted ‘accommodations’ to prevent him from facing criminal proceedings while in the White House. The court could maintain his guilty verdict without disrupting his presidency or nullifying the verdict entirely.
One option would be to postpone Trump’s sentencing until after he leaves office, which prosecutors had previously suggested, meaning he would not be sentenced until at least 2029.
Another alternative would be to follow a process used in cases where defendants have died before sentencing. In this scenario, Trump’s verdict would stand, but the case would conclude without sentencing. The case record would note that the jury verdict removed the presumption of innocence, that Trump was never sentenced, and that his conviction was neither affirmed nor reversed on appeal due to presidential immunity.