With a trial over, Donald Trump’s legal future remains a jumble of uncertainty.
Just a few months ago, it looked like Trump might be hopping from court to court in the final months before the presidential election, with multiple criminal cases scheduled to go to trial.
Now, after a guilty verdict in the New York hush money case, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate is a felon awaiting sentencing. But none of the three other criminal cases against him have a trial date, and it is unclear when or if any of them will go before a jury.
The Supreme Court will make a pivotal decision this month or early next that could determine whether Trump’s election interference trial in D.C. is scheduled before the November election. The pace of his federal trial over classified documents in Florida depends largely on U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who has moved slowly in handling pretrial motions, according to legal experts.
And Trump’s election interference case in Georgia will almost certainly extend into 2025, as the trial judge waits for an appeals court to address the question of whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis should be allowed to remain on the case.
If Trump is elected president in November, that would greatly complicate at least the two federal trials, because he could appoint an attorney general who could dismiss the charges against him. It is also against Justice Department policy to prosecute a sitting president, and it is unclear whether courts would allow a president to be tried on state charges in Georgia.
And if any of the three remaining cases go before a jury, Trump will sit at the defense table under different circumstances than in New York. He is no longer a first-time offender. He will be a felon with a criminal record.
That means any new conviction carries a significantly higher risk of receiving a prison sentence or more severe punishment. And during a trial, it could lead to new attacks by prosecutors on Trump’s credibility if he decided to take the stand as a witness.
“When calculating federal sentencing guidelines, your criminal history will be taken into account,” said Tess Lopez, a sentencing consultant. “And it will increase the scope of sentencing guidelines.”
Trump’s legal team has so far tried to delay the trials, a strategy that has proven quite effective.
In Florida, where Trump faces federal charges for improperly maintaining classified documents after leaving the White House, Cannon delayed the trial indefinitely. He has allowed pretrial motions to accumulate and canceled the trial date previously scheduled for May.
She plans to spend the summer holding hearings on the defense’s attempts to reduce the charge or dismiss it entirely, making a trial unlikely before November.
Legal experts say the federal interference in the D.C. election case, where he is accused of conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiring against people’s rights, is the most likely to succeed. go to trial before the elections. That case is on hold until the Supreme Court weighs in on Trump’s claim that presidential immunity bars his prosecution in the case.
The decision will be made at the end of the court’s term, either this month or early July. If the justices agree that Trump can be prosecuted for at least some of the acts alleged in the indictment, the D.C. case would resume its pretrial preparations.
The key question may be what legal tests, if any, the high court establishes to decide whether any of the conduct charged in the case constitutes official acts that are exempt from prosecution. Leaving those issues in the hands of the trial judge could mean more time-consuming rounds of court rulings and appeals.
However, if the Supreme Court decides the matter itself, the D.C. trial could happen more quickly.
In Georgia, where Trump and 14 others face state racketeering charges related to their 2020 efforts to overturn the former president’s loss in the state, the case is on hold.
Prosecutors and defendants are biding their time on an appeal of a trial judge’s decision allowing Willis to remain on the case despite a romantic relationship with an outside attorney she had hired to act as the trial’s lead prosecutor. case. The Georgia Court of Appeals is not expected to take up the case before late summer, and a ruling is not expected before late 2024 or early 2025.
Trial Judge Scott T. McAfee of Fulton Superior Court is unlikely to schedule a trial against Trump to begin before the appeals court rules.
The Georgia case could also be affected by the Supreme Court’s immunity decision. If the justices rule outright that Trump has immunity, defense attorneys will almost certainly try to apply that legal principle to the Georgia case as well, prompting a new round of filings and hearings over the summer.
If Trump goes to trial in any of these three cases, several criminal defense lawyers said, his conviction in New York could influence his testimony in his own defense. Having a criminal defendant testify at his own trial is rare and risky under any circumstances, but Trump has flirted with the idea and said he wants to do it.
He did not testify at the New York trial.
If he were to testify in pending trials, prosecutors in those cases could be allowed to present his conviction (and the behavior that led to it) as evidence impugning or discrediting his testimony.
It is not certain that the judges presiding over such cases will allow prosecutors to do so, but it is a common legal maneuver, these lawyers said.
And by being sentenced after any possible future guilty verdicts, Trump or any criminal would have no way to avoid their criminal record, Lopez said.
Federal sentencing guidelines are based on a point system in which a judge evaluates a person’s criminal history, personal characteristics and the crime they committed. The more points a person accumulates, the higher the sentencing range. These points then act as a guide for the judge when passing sentence.
Lopez said Trump would likely receive one point for his New York state conviction if convicted of a federal crime. If he goes to jail in the New York case for at least 60 days, which is unlikely given Trump’s age and lack of a criminal record, that’s another two points, according to Lopez.
The judge would also evaluate personal characteristics, which could include whether Trump has respected court orders and shown remorse. Judges typically adhere to these sentencing guidelines, but have discretion and are not bound by them.
“They really focus on their criminal history and personal characteristics and what the circumstances of their crimes are, whether aggravating or mitigating,” Lopez said. “They really flesh it out when considering his sentencing.”
Keynote USA
For the Latest Local News, Follow Keynote USA Local on Twitter.