Opinion | How Justice Merchan could sentence Donald Trump – The Washington Post
He will sentence Donald Trump in July. Here’s how it could go.
The defendant will rise.
Mr. Trump, I have thought long and hard about the appropriate sentence in this case. I am going to sentence you to 60 days in jail and six months of community service. I am going to suspend imposition of the sentence until the conclusion of any appeals that you may bring.
In addition, if you are elected president, any sentence that you serve will take place at the conclusion of your term in office. As a former president, your safety is paramount, and I instruct state authorities to work with the Secret Service to find an appropriate venue for housing you and your security detail. I am confident that a suitable solution can be found; if one cannot, the relevant parties should report back to me, and we will take things from there.
Let me begin with the arguments in favor of a lighter, noncustodial sentence. You are a 77-year-old man with no prior criminal record. The 34 felony counts on which you have been convicted are nonviolent offenses. Under New York law, they constitute Class E felonies, the least serious category. As a general matter, most of those convicted of felony violations involving falsification of business records, as you have been, are not sentenced to time in jail.
These are all factors that weigh against incarcerating you. One factor that I do not believe is relevant, and that I therefore have not considered, is your status as a former president and a current presidential candidate. As I said earlier, your presidential service is relevant to the conditions of your confinement, not to the baseline question of whether you should be incarcerated.
The fact of your having served as president, and the possibility that you will be elected to a second term, cuts in both directions. You are entitled to the respect and accompanying protections accorded someone who has held the highest office in the land.
But the fact that you occupied that office also means that you are, or should be, a role model for other citizens. There is an argument that those entrusted with such positions of prominence and responsibility should be held even more strictly to account when they abuse the public trust and violate the law.
In my view, just as no person is above the law, no person should be treated better — or worse — because of the position they once held. In addition, I do not take into account any political implications of the sentence I impose. My job is to dispense justice to the best of my ability, not to anticipate public reaction or political fallout. Some will vehemently disagree with, and protest, the sentence I impose today. That is their right under the protections of our Constitution.
So, as I said, I am sentencing you to 60 days in jail. I base this decision on several factors. First, it is in line with — indeed, it is less severe than — sentences imposed on others involved in the same activities for which you have been convicted.
Michael Cohen, who testified against you, was sentenced to three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to crimes that included the very same payments central to this case. I myself sentenced Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, to five months for his role in a tax fraud scheme at your company.
It cannot be that the principal of the organization should be somehow immune from incarceration while his deputies must serve time. And sentencing you to some kind of home detention hardly seems like much of an imposition given the quality of your homes.
Second, although nonviolent, the conduct of which you have been convicted involves a serious offense against voters of this state and against the political system more broadly. The jury found that you conspired to keep potentially relevant and politically damaging information from coming to light during the 2016 election.
This is not a victimless crime, or a harmless one. As you well understood, your conduct might have influenced the outcome of that campaign. The subsequent falsification of business records, which the jury found that you intended, was in furtherance of that conspiracy.
Third, I must take into account your egregious conduct during the course of the trial and in the aftermath of your conviction. It is your right — as a citizen, a criminal defendant and a presidential candidate — to assert your innocence, to criticize the prosecution and to disagree with the verdict. It is your right to pursue every avenue of appeal.
It is not your right to disobey court orders, as you did in repeatedly and flagrantly violating my carefully crafted instructions on the permissible contours of your grievances. You criticized witnesses. You disparaged the jury. You committed 10 separate instances of contempt of court, and you came close then to being jailed for that conduct.
Immediately after the verdict was issued, you described the trial as “disgraceful” and “rigged.” In your fundraising emails, you have described yourself as a “political prisoner.” You darkly warned that the public might not “stand for it” were you to be jailed. It is your right, as you appeal, to protest your innocence. But your repeated and unwarranted denigration of the criminal justice system can fairly be held against you.
I hereby sentence you to 60 days in jail, followed by six months of community service. I do not take this step lightly, but I have concluded, after much reflection, that it is just and necessary that you be held accountable for your conduct.
It is so ordered.