Noted attorney Alan Dershowitz said Monday that New York Judge Juan Merchan would “do everything in his power” to uphold the conviction of former President Donald Trump.
Merchan pushed back the scheduled sentencing of Trump on 34 felony counts of falsification of business records to Sept. 18 following a July 1 Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity. Dershowitz said that despite the immunity decision and a separate Supreme Court ruling that jury verdicts must be unanimous as to facts used to enhance sentences, Merchan would look to avoid reversing the jury’s verdict. (RELATED: Alvin Bragg’s Team Agrees To Delay Sentencing In Trump Trial Following SCOTUS Immunity Ruling)
“The Supreme Court held in the last week of the term that you need unanimous jury verdicts in order to enhance punishment, in order to do what happened in this case,” Dershowitz said, referencing the court’s 6-3 decision in Erlinger v. United States. “Remember, in this case, without unanimous jury verdicts, without a unanimous jury verdict, you had turning a misdemeanor into a felony, changing the statute of limitations and enhancing the punishment, that’s possible, and you didn’t need a unanimous jury verdict for that. You didn’t even need to know which crimes the jurors focused on. You could have had multiple choice: Some jurors focusing on this, some on this, some on the other, some by a vote of seven to five, some by vote of six to six, who knows?”
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In Erlinger v. United States, the court ruled that under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, a jury had to find unanimously beyond a reasonable doubt on the facts used to justify imposing a sentencing enhancement, according to Newsweek.
“I think the New York case has to be reversed, and I think that’s why Judge Merchan will do everything in his power not to reverse the case, postpone the sentencing until September, to give him some time to perhaps come up with some justifications for not reversing,” Dershowitz added.
Legal experts questioned Merchan’s instructions in the case prior to the jury’s deliberations, with one saying that a jury being unable to agree on an underlying crime that the alleged falsification of records was to cover up was a clear indication of “doubt.”
Merchan came under fire from Trump supporters and legal experts for a perceived bias against former President Trump over his handling of the business records case. His daughter Loren, owned a firm that helped Democrats raise at least $93 million off the former president’s indictment in the case, according to a a New York Post report that Trump shared on Truth Social.
Former Biden administration official Colangelo took a role as senior counsel with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg prior to the business records trial of Trump, helping deliver opening arguments in the case.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) records showed that Merchan made a $15 donation to President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020 and two $10 donations, a fundraising site for Democrats, one to a group called “Stop Republicans” and one to a “Progressive Turnout Project.”
United States District Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida dismissed charges against Trump involving classified materials after she found that Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional under the Appointments Clause of the Constitution in a 93-page ruling released Monday morning. Smith announced he would appeal her decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
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