Over the last week, America’s leading legal scholars and journalists have explained that former president Donald Trump is now a convicted felon. A jury found Trump guilty of many crimes, including falsifying business records and interfering in an election.
But according to an influential constitutional law scholar at Yale University, legal scholars and journalists got the story all wrong. Trump is not, in fact, a convicted felon. “You're not convicted unless the judge enters a judgment of guilt against you,” explained Yale’s Jed Rubenfeld, “And the judge still has the power… to throw out that verdict and enter a judgment of acquittal.”
Rubenfeld acknowledges that “it's very likely that Judge [Juan] Merchan will enter that judgment of guilt against Trump on the same day that he issued sentencing, July 11.”
But Trump’s lawyers can still sue New York City District Attorney Alvin “Bragg and other state actors and ask the judge — the federal judge — for an emergency temporary restraining order, halting Judge Merchan from entering that judgment of guilt until the federal courts have had an opportunity to review and rule on the serious constitutional arguments that exist here.”
Rubenfeld made his remarks in a video, and I reached him by phone. He elaborated on how the Supreme Court could rule on the case.
