'Extraordinary circumstances': NY judge in Trump case pauses all court deadlines, sentencing

The Manhattan judge overseeing President-elect Donald Trump's trial agreed to grant a stay on all deadlines associated with the felony conviction proceedings against Trump in the final months before he takes office, a closely-watched decision that allows Trump to avoid a maximum sentence of up to four years in prison.

The judge overseeing the case, Judge Juan Merchan, granted the request, which issues a stay on all deadlines, including the Nov. 26 sentencing date, to consider the effect of his election as president.

Prosecutors had asked for the pause in proceedings, which they said would allow them to better evaluate the impact of Trump’s new status as president-elect.

"The People agree that these are unprecedented circumstances," prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said in a letter to Judge Merchan.

Trump's attorneys, who had filed a motion to vacate the charges completely, also backed the stay. 

Trump was convicted in May by a Manhattan jury on 34 counts of falsifying business records, stemming from a case about payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.

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Merchan agreed earlier this year to a four-month delay for the court proceedings, pushing next steps until after the 2024 presidential election. 

He had set Nov. 12 as a self-imposed deadline to decide how best to proceed.

The decision comes after the Supreme Court said in a July 1 ruling that presidents should enjoy presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for most actions taken as president.

Justices writing for a 4-3 majority said that presidents are entitled to absolute immunity from any actions taken within the scope of "core constitutional powers" as commander-in-chief. 

A presumption of immunity also applies to other actions taken while holding office, they said.

It is not clear whether a president is to be afforded the same level of constitutional protections for state convictions, however, and the matter has never been tested in court.

Trump officials praised the pause in court proceedings Tuesday. Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital that the pause makes "abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, including this case … so we can unify our country and work together for the betterment of our nation."

The Nov. 12 deadline is separate from the sentencing hearing for the 34 convictions, which had previously been set for Nov. 26. 

Rather, this was a self-imposed deadline set by Merchan that allows him to consider Trump’s claims of presidential immunity and whether the Supreme Court’s July ruling on the scope of immunity should apply to the state level.

Even if Trump’s convictions were upheld, the president-elect has myriad ways to appeal the case or get the charges against him dismissed before the Nov. 26 sentencing hearing — making it all but certain he will face no time behind bars.

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The first would be moving the case from state to federal court — which Trump’s lawyers had twice tried and failed to do in the months ahead of the election. However, their request to elevate the case to federal court now carries more weight, given Trump’s status as president-elect. 

If that fails, Trump’s attorneys would likely appeal the convictions ahead of his sentencing hearing, using the Supreme Court immunity ruling as grounds to have the charges dismissed. 

They are also likely to use the immunity claim to throw out portions of evidence used by prosecutors in the New York case, including testimony from former White House communications director Hope Hicks.

Even if all this fails, legal analysts and former prosecutors have roundly dismissed the idea that Trump would face prison time for the convictions.

"Understand, Trump is not going to prison even if Merchan metes out an incarceration sentence. Though the charges are felonies, they are not sufficiently serious under New York law to merit immediate detention; Trump will get bail pending appeal," Andrew McCarthy, a former U.S. prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, wrote in an op-ed last week for Fox News Digital.

Had Merchan moved to keep the convictions intact, he could have sought additional guidance from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, including on whether Trump should be submitted to state convictions as a sitting president — a question that has never been tested.

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Trump's legal team would almost certainly have appealed any conviction as far as the Supreme Court, if necessary.

Trump is shielded from federal convictions under longstanding Justice Department policy preventing U.S. attorneys from prosecuting a sitting president.

However, this precedent has never been applied to state convictions, giving Judge Merchan a somewhat wider berth in deciding how to proceed. 

His decision comes days after special counsel Jack Smith filed a motion to vacate all deadlines in the 2020 election interference case against President-elect Trump in Washington, D.C. 

Smith had been tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to investigate both the alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as Trump's keeping of allegedly classified documents at his residence in Florida after leaving the White House in 2020.

While those charges have not been officially dropped, the special counsel appears to be moving in that direction, and Smith said his team plans to give an updated report on the official status of the case against Trump on Dec. 2. 

Former Attorney General Bill Barr told Fox News Digital that state and local prosecutors and judges need to move on from the "spectacle" of prosecuting the president-elect.