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by zzrrt6 hours ago |
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upvoteby ceejayoz6 hours ago|
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> Edit: Oh, maybe you’re thinking of things like the Colorado ballot eligibility case.

No, I'm thinking of the get-out-of-jail card they gave him in Trump v. US that immediately impacted NY v. Trump.

> Then if he hadn’t been electable, he would have been sentenced to serve time.

No, I think an electable person should still be able to be locked up for crimes.

> Or are you okay with partisan hacks in the SC as long as they are Dems instead?

I think the only chance of saving SCOTUS from partisan hackery is to stop surrendering.

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upvoteby ceejayoz6 hours ago|
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> Are you saying a Biden-packed SC would have directly resulted in Trump being jailed?

I don't think a Biden-packed SC would've found the President to be immune to criminal charges, no.

> And my understanding was he was sentenced for the felonies, to unconditional discharge, because he was days away from beginning his second term.

He was sentenced to nothing, directly because of the SCOTUS ruling. Per the judge: "the only lawful sentence that permits entry of judgment of conviction without encroachment on the highest office of the land".

Pre-SCOTUS ruling, no such "encroachment" existed.

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upvoteby zzrrt6 hours ago|
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His felony convictions came from crimes committed in the 2016 campaign. The judge “subsequently ruled that Trump's conviction related "entirely to unofficial conduct" and "poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch."” (https://abcnews.com/US/judge-trumps-hush-money-case-expected...) so I don’t think it relates to SCOTUS’s immunity ruling.
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upvoteby ceejayoz5 hours ago|
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> Merchan subsequently ruled that Trump's conviction related "entirely to unofficial conduct" and "poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch."

Again, at the actual sentencing, his ruling stated an unconditional discharge was "the only lawful sentence that permits entry of judgment of conviction without encroachment on the highest office of the land".

"I can sentence you, but only to nothing" is functionally not being able to sentence him.

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upvoteby zzrrt30 minutes ago|
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If he was referring to the 2024 SCOTUS ruling, I guess I expected him to spell it out well enough for an armchair lawyer like myself, but you are probably right. Though I wonder if the "encroach" wording could be about the Supremacy clause and separation of powers (him being a state judge encroaching on the elected federal executive.) He wrote a lot at https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFs/press/PDFs/People%20v.%2... but I can't tell how much this SCOTUS ruling weighed into it. There are references to "presidential immunity" that, I think, encompass older cases than the 2024 one.

Anyway, in agreement with your larger point, the legal analyst at https://youtu.be/4tbaDI7ycrA?t=592 says he believe this SCOTUS would not have allowed a real sentence, so my nitpicking about the interaction of the 2024 decision with the lower court's sentencing doesn't matter much; SCOTUS would have let Trump go either way, and probably a Biden-packed court wouldn't have.

It's just another sign that modern Republicans aren't truly "Constitution-lovers" or textualists, that their leader is only safe because judicial activism invented immunity for him.

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