A legal earthquake of massive proportions hit Lower Manhattan this afternoon. Up to now, while many have carefully referred to the “alleged” charges against the former president, Donald Trump has now been convicted for this behavior related to those charges by a jury of his peers.
In the face of considerable threats to this trial and, by extension, the rule of law, this trial proceeded affording the accused all the protections of due process. Because of that, and the outcome, perhaps the real winner here is that fundamental principle of the American legal system: that no one is above the law.
The former president has faced considerable legal problems before in his life, from bankruptcies, to defamation cases, to civil fraud cases. He has threatened to sue people and has sued others with abandon. He has never been on the business end of a criminal conviction before, however.
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The political ramifications of this decision are yet to be seen, and while we have not reached the beginning of the end for Mr. Trump, perhaps, as Winston Churchill said midway through WWII, we have reached the end of the beginning.
There will now be two periods in the 2024 election: before the conviction and after the conviction. But the larger picture to keep in mind here is not who is up or who is down in the polls before or after this conviction. What we should pause to recognize is that the rule of law prevailed. That Trump’s antics outside the courthouse, and in the court of public opinion, did not sway the judge, jury, or the prosecutors.
Thus, perhaps the most important outcome of this trial is not the verdict, which Trump immediately called a “disgrace” after it was delivered. It is that the system worked. Judge Juan Merchan served admirably, in the face of threats and intimidation from the defendant and his supporters, and bent over backwards to protect Mr. Trump’s due process rights.
The jury appears to have stayed focused and attentive throughout the proceeding, and was careful in reviewing both the judge’s instructions and evidence, making sure they understood the testimony that was presented before them.
The attorneys at the District Attorney’s office who tried the case also faced threats and intimidation and did their job in the face of such threats. Even Mr. Trump’s defense attorneys behaved admirably, and I think we will learn that some of their possibly questionable tactical decisions were carried at the behest of their client.
Once again, we do not yet know what the political ramifications of this decision might be, but that really should be secondary right now. By definition, the outcome of the election is political, and voters serve, in a way, as the ultimate court of “public opinion.” That court will reach its verdict in November.
There is still one more court that must stand for the rule of law, and should be as brave as Judge Merchan, the jury that convicted Mr. Trump, and the prosecutor’s office that brought the case. All indications are that that court—the Supreme Court—is unlikely to take a similar stand for the rule of law. In the next few weeks, we will learn whether that court will find that the former president is immune from prosecution for his alleged (there’s that word again) effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
While the insurrection-supporting flags that have flown at Justice Alito’s home and summer home have gotten a lot of attention of late, and despite the apparent bias that those flags likely demonstrate, Justice Alito has declared he will not recuse himself from critical decisions about the storming of the U.S. Capitol. While at least this one justice has appeared to have tipped his hand as to his feelings towards the rule of law when that will not serve his desired political ends, we must hope that the other justices on the court are not as cynical or compromised.
For the sake of its own reputation as an institution, let us hope that the Supreme Court will be emboldened by the brave acts of New York’s civil servants and citizens, and do as they did: stand for the rule of law.
