This has come up a few times in different threads, so let’s have a thread specifically about it.
Basically: if Trump is found guilty on the hush money/election interference case he will probably go to prison.
People who are saying he’s definitely not going to see the inside of a prison cell are wrong. That is not a forgone conclusion or even the most likely outcome.
First get the caveats out of the way.
A guilt verdict is not guaranteed. It’s looking likely but the jury could go any way.
He will definitely appeal. And there is a chance (though again not a certainty) he’ll be able to avoid prison until they are complete. But his appeals will probably fail and he’ll run out of appeals eventually.
He’s not going to get decades in prison. The judge will not force him serve all his sentences consecutively.
But if he’s convicted he’s most likely getting a going to get a prison sentence. The theoretical maximum is four years but he’s but not going to get that. Give the sentencing guidelines a sentence of months, maybe over a year is likely. And if he gets that sentence he’s probably serving it (or at least a decent chunk of it). That’s how custodial sentences work, yeah he "might* get off on appeal, the SCOTUS might decide to save him. But most likely at some point, possibly as soon as this summer he’s gonna have to report to prison to be incarcerated.
It’s possible (though, yet again, not inevitable) he can delay with appeals until after the election, but remember this is a state ruling so even winning the election won’t help him here.
And one final thing, if one of the other cases does get a guilty verdict too, then he’s no longer a first time offender, so the sentencing there will not be so lenient (as well being more serious charges to start with)
Trump is being charged with Class E felonies (the least severe kind in NY law), and a likely sentence is anywhere from probation to 4 years in prison. (In theory it could be up to 20 years but I don’t see anyone suggesting that’s in any way plausible.)
I see opinions from news organizations that say anything from it being plausible or even likely that he’d serve some time to it being very remote due to a combination of his age and the fact that he has never been convicted before.
But I do agree that the idea that there is zero chance of him serving time is not based on facts. There is definitely a greater than zero chance.
He’s been treated so deferentially for so long that I can’t imagine him being very inconvenienced now. House arrest if anything, but no ankle monitor. And no restrictions on social media, or conspiratorial visitors.
Trump will probably be re-elected as the next president regardless of the outcome of these trials. That is the truth that the Democratic Party refuses to see. The legal system is being used to circomvent electoral process. Everyone sees that, including Democrats. The trials are show trials and will not affect the election. There is nothing really there.
Thinking that re-running a Biden/Harris ticket as the only alternative, that is really a bad move. Any other viable Democratic challenger would win easily.
In the immortal words of James Carville; “It is the economy, stupid!” And the boarder (which is about the Economy) and foreign aid (also about the Economy).
I’m Canadian and have no direct horse in this race (although we will suffer side-effects), but Trump is being prosecuted because there is enough evidence to convince multiple grand juries that there is a reasonable probability that he has committed multiple crimes.
There should be no literal “Get out of Jail” card just because he’s running for President.
That doesn’t make any sense to me. Even if convicted, Trump can still run for president. There’s even a historic precedent: Eugene Debs received a million votes in 1920 while in jail.
In no way is the legal system circumventing the electoral process. It’s not stopping him from running for office.
What evidence is there for that outcome? What about Judge Merchan’s treatment of Trump in this trial has made you think “this guy’s gonna give him a slap on the wrist for 34 felonies”. I’ve been watching the trial and I’ve seen absolutely no hint of that (hell plenty more than he’s super pissed at Trump and will lean the other way if anything)
First offense with no prior convictions. He is getting probation, maybe a few days house arrest but no more. He will probably get a night or two at the court house for violation of the gag order is more likely than real jail time.
That wasn’t even true in 2020. It’s even less true in 2024.
Can we just fast forward to fucking November already?
ETA: Oh yeah, OP!
Ahem… Unless Trump gets locked up for a few hours, or a night, for contempt, for being a crying, belligerent dickbag during one of his criminal trials, the spoiled ass baby is never going to do any real time behind bars.
Really. Welcome to America, sometimes it ain’t at all pretty.
First time felons who lose at trial rarely escape incarceration.
4 years is on the table. It’s within the range of punishment under the statue, so I wouldn’t it be?
Now, I definitely don’t think the judge maxes him out. But when you consider the seriousness of the offense – messing with a presidential election – it would seem to me that it should fall on the more aggravated end of the punishment scale.
What I read is that for Trump to only get probation, while possible, would have to be due to some exception. Merchan would have to think that there was something special in this case that warrants a much lower punishment than usual. I agree that he doesn’t seem like he’d lean that way.
A lot of the speculation was more along the line of whether he’d end up with more or less than a year and serve his time in jail or prison.
Judges are (usually) exceptionally professional. They keep their emotions under wraps, and make it a point to address even the most loathsome people with respect.
But they have feelings and opinions. Of course they do. It is doubtless that being repeatedly insulted and disrespected, by somebody who you have treated with utmost civility, is going to get to you after a while. Then just imagine how infuriating it is when your child is brought into the conversation.
So there’s absolutely no reason why Merchan should be looking for excuses to mitigate the sentence. Googling tells me, from New York criminal defense attorneys, that convictions for a Class E felony entail a minimum of a year in jail.
We shall see. But I know how I feel about the incorrigible gasbag, and he hasn’t addressed me or my family.
You’ve got Biden as simultaneously powerful and weak here. He can arrange several show trials for his opponent. Political interference all the way because while Trump is innocent, it’s just that easy to make him look guilty (for things he admits on TV that he has done that are against the law except unless he does them). Judges answer to their clerks and daughters and mysterious Democratic operatives working in the shadows. Everything is rigged and Donald J. Trump is the last honest man on earth.
But then why are they being polite? Why are they going slowly and asking nicely when they are dealing with Trump? Why give him any deference at all? For the documents case alone he should be imprisoned at a CIA black site. For threatening the families of various court officials repeatedly he should be in Riker’s Island. And since Trump is arguing to the Supreme Court (with some success) that the President should be immune from any and all criminal prosecution, Biden could simply order him imprisoned or killed as an official act in the course of Biden’s duties. If the Supreme Court gets in the way he can do the same to them. Is Biden failing because he gets tired too fast? He sets up this giant conspiracy to get Trump but goes down for a nap before giving the orders to something more than just inconvenience him? Biden has the power to end this at any time but he’s not using it because…?
Trump is a perpetual victim and all he seems to know how to do is whine. I guess some people find that compelling but personally I don’t understand why anyone would follow a person who is so powerless and ruled by emotion. I don’t understand why the Republicans would even think about running a candidate like this unless it is some secret plot to use the 25th Amendment on him once he is in office (which he would be powerless to stop as he has been powerless to stop everything else his opponents have done to him). Republicans already got what they needed out of him. They would be way better off to dump him, run a candidate who actually has some ideas and policies (beyond putting undesirables in cages) and who can speak plain English without descending into word salad delivered in a tone of baby talk. But let’s see what he looks like six months from now. Six more months of him plummeting from that cognitive cliff that he has already gone over should make it a lot more clear to every concerned voter that he does not pack the gear to serve as POTUS, now or ever.
Which brings me back to the point of the thread. Jail? Perhaps briefly, especially considering his flagrant violations of various gag orders. But he will certainly avoid jail if/when (emphasis on when) he’s in a complex care facility for patients with cognitive decline. It’s still a type of jail in that the doors are locked and he won’t be allowed to wander as he pleases. But the longer he’s in there for the less he will worry about it and the less anyone else will need to worry about him.