Facing a maximum sentence of four years in prison, President-elect Donald Trump received a relatively light sentence – an “unconditional discharge” – from New York state Judge Juan Merchan today, meaning his conviction on business fraud charges stands but he faces no incarceration, fines, or probation.
While the sentence in the so-called “hush money” case is minimal – unusually so, according to some experts – it is also unprecedented.
Why We Wrote This
The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money case sentenced him to an “unconditional discharge.’’ It’s a highly unusual outcome – in a highly unusual case affecting an incoming president. His conviction stands, but with no more penalties.
Mr. Trump is now the first former president, and president-elect, to be officially branded a felon. The somewhat surreal proceeding – Mr. Trump appeared via video link – closes a chapter in only one of four criminal cases brought against the former president.
Hearing his sentence, Mr. Trump – just over a week away from his inauguration – appeared bemused and defiant, delivering a five-minute address to the court before the judge handed down his sentence.
“This has been a very terrible experience,” Mr. Trump said. “This is a great embarrassment to the state of New York.”
Judge Merchan responded that the trial “was no different than any other case” he had heard in his 17 years on the bench.
While the presidency comes with extensive powers, “one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” he said.
In a historic proceeding in a Manhattan court today, President-elect Donald Trump became the first former or incoming president to be sentenced for felony crimes.
Facing a maximum sanction of four years in prison, Mr. Trump received an “unconditional discharge” sentence from New York state Judge Juan Merchan – meaning his conviction on business fraud charges stands, but he faces no incarceration, fines, or probation. But while the sentence is minimal – unusually so, according to some experts – it is also unprecedented.
Mr. Trump is now the first former president, and president-elect, to be officially branded a felon. The somewhat surreal proceeding – Mr. Trump appeared via video link – closes a chapter in only one of four criminal cases brought against the former president.
Why We Wrote This
The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money case sentenced him to an “unconditional discharge.’’ It’s a highly unusual outcome – in a highly unusual case affecting an incoming president. His conviction stands, but with no more penalties.
Hearing his sentence, Mr. Trump – just over a week away from his inauguration – appeared bemused and defiant, delivering a five-minute address to the court before the judge handed down his sentence.
“This has been a very terrible experience,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m totally innocent. I did nothing wrong.”
Judge Merchan, minutes later, contended that the trial “was no more special, unique, or extraordinary than any other” criminal case taking place in the courthouse at that time.
While the presidency comes with extensive powers, “one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” he said.
“Sir, I wish you Godspeed as you pursue your second term in office,” he concluded.
Having been found guilty last May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, Mr. Trump pushed to have the case dismissed or delayed. His sentencing was delayed twice. But after months of speculation that he could become the first president in history to be sent to prison, today’s proceeding might feel anticlimactic.
While legal experts say that the sentence was lighter than it would have been had Mr. Trump been a typical defendant, many say it represents the best of a justice system that has come under heavy criticism as the president-elect has fought four separate criminal prosecutions.
“The judge is being very careful to not put any kind of burden on [Mr. Trump] as he begins his service as president,” says Marta Nelson, the director of sentencing reform at the Vera Institute of Justice.
Judge Merchan wants “to be giving some due process and ability to appeal,” she adds. But “moving towards sentencing before inauguration is this judge’s way of showing that no one is above the law.”
Ending one phase of legal battle, beginning another
The sentencing today concludes the first phase of an almost two-year legal battle. It also triggers the second phase: Mr. Trump can now begin appealing his conviction and sentence.
A Manhattan jury found Mr. Trump guilty of falsifying business records. Those records related to hush money payments made on the eve of the 2016 presidential election to an adult-film star alleged to have had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.
Sentencing had already been delayed twice at Mr. Trump’s request – first in July last year due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic ruling on presidential immunity, then again in September as the presidential election loomed. On Thursday night, the high court, in a 5-4 vote, rejected a bid by the president-elect to delay sentencing once more.
Many experts viewed the Manhattan case as the weakest of the four criminal cases brought against Mr. Trump. Yet it was the only case to go to trial, and the president-elect used the two-month proceeding to raise vast amounts of campaign funds and to criticize witnesses, prosecutors, and Judge Merchan in appearances outside the courthouse.
Mr. Trump has maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings, describing them as “lawfare” waged by a Democratic district attorney. His lawyers have tried to get the case dismissed, moved out of Manhattan, or moved to federal court, claiming juror bias, conflict of interest with Judge Merchan, and prosecutorial misconduct.
Lightest possible sentence
An unconditional discharge “appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality and allow Defendant to pursue his appellate options,” wrote Judge Merchan in an order last week. To vacate the jury’s verdict because Mr. Trump is a former president and a president-elect, he added, “would constitute a disproportionate result and cause immeasurable damage to the citizenry’s confidence in the Rule of Law.”
Instead, giving the president-elect what could be the lightest sentence possible may have the opposite effect, according to some experts.
“You can argue it actually makes [trust in] the system somewhat better because you have a judge taking to reality the situation,” says Vinoo Varghese, a criminal defense lawyer in New York City and a former state prosecutor. In his 25 years as a lawyer in the city, Mr. Varghese says he’s seen only one unconditional discharge, and it was for a misdemeanor crime.
For someone convicted on 34 felony counts, “that screams jail time,” he adds. With that conviction, “there’s no other defendant that’s walking away without jail.”
Flexible sentencing, judicial censure
The final judgment may anger Mr. Trump’s supporters and his critics, not to mention the president-elect himself. But Judge Merchan’s actions illustrate the unique reality of the case. Furthermore, they display the flexibility that some legal experts believe needs to be more present in criminal sentencing in the U.S.
One aspect of sentencing that even the president-elect received is one that criminal defendants around the country receive regularly: a public dressing-down from the judge.
Indeed, this element of the justice system is one of the oldest there is.
“Sentences are supposed to humiliate you,” says John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School. “In pre-Revolutionary America, we put people in the stocks, and that was for humiliation, not pain,” he adds.
Sentences are supposed to achieve two other things as well, says Ms. Nelson at the Vera Institute. They’re supposed to provide some accountability for the harm that was done, and they’re supposed to make sure, as best they can, that the crime doesn’t happen again.
Accountability typically requires the defendant to do something, like perform community service, pay a fine, or spend time in prison. Ms. Nelson describes it as having a defendant “do sorry.”
Can’t ‘do sorry’
But this case is different – unprecedented, even.
“You can’t ‘do sorry’ … when you’re president of the United States,” she says.
That said, a uniquely light sentence for a unique defendant “makes the case that a sentence should [often] be individualized,” she continues. A sentence “should be based on the facts of the crime, and who the defendant is and what the consequences of that sentence would be upon the defendant,” says Ms. Nelson.
That appears to have happened with Mr. Trump.
In New York, the maximum sentence for the felony falsification of business records is four years in prison. Given the president-elect’s age, and his lack of a prior criminal record, many legal experts agreed that a sentence carrying some form of punishment, like a fine or probation, was more likely.
Instead, the sentence was an unconditional discharge, an adjudication that, given the conviction, perhaps only a president-elect less than two weeks from his inauguration could get. (And a conviction, again, that Mr. Trump can now seek to overturn on appeal.)
“This is a very tailored sentence,” says Ms. Nelson. “Wouldn’t it be great if everybody else had that same level of tailoring to their particular circumstances?”
