New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s decision to postpone former president Donald Trump’s sentencing Friday is yet another flagrant and sickening example of how the criminal justice system treats Black, often poor, Americans one way but rich, white Americans differently.
Imagine that a Black man robs a liquor store and then announces he’s running for mayor. As he campaigns and during his trial, he publicly disparages the prosecutors, the judge, the judge’s family. Then, after the robber is convicted, he asks the judge he repeatedly insulted to postpone his sentencing because…he’s running for mayor.
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It’s a preposterous calculus, and yet it’s roughly analogous to what we all saw on Friday.
There are numerous opportunities in our criminal justice system to get leniency and the benefit of the doubt. Black people often don’t get either. Many white defendants expect - and get - both.
Much has been said about Trump’s threat to respect for the rule of law. But that threat isn’t simply coming from the former president. It’s being amplified by fawning and feckless judges who cower at the first suggestion that they might be treating a powerful, rich white man like the convicted criminal he is.
Running for any elected office is a privilege, not a requirement and not a right. It is no more an excuse to delay or avoid criminal consequences than is wearing a green shirt. But time and again, the nation is treated to judges who, quite literally, appear afraid of Trump and his supporters.
It’s understandable that the likes of Georgia election workers Wandrea Ross and Ruby Freeman would be fearful of deranged Trump supporters threatening them for simply helping to count votes in a state election the former president didn’t win. They were ordinary citizens doing the work that allows us to have free and fair elections. What’s Merchan’s excuse? He’s a state Supreme Court judge who has protection.
Trump, as we all remember, was convicted of 34 felony counts in a case where he and his former fixer/lawyer cooked up a scheme to pay off a porn star so she wouldn’t spill the tea about him having unprotected sex with her. The scheme was designed to keep said porn star, Stormy Daniels, quiet as Trump ran for the presidency.
The former fixer, Michael Cohen, went to jail for campaign finance violations tied to the scheme. Trump, convicted three months ago, faced up to four years in prison for his part in the scheme, though few think he will actually get that much time, if any, behind bars.
In delaying Trump’s sentencing until after the election, Merchan wrote that his decision “should dispel any suggestion that the Court will have issued any decision or imposed sentence either to give an advantage to, or to create a disadvantage for, any political party and or any candidate for any office.”
Put simply, Merchan got punked. Since when was running for election a stay out of jail free card? He could have issued his sentence. Trump would have appealed and remained free while doing so - like many other non-violent criminal defendants.
Instead, Mechan shrunk from the prospect that he might be blamed for appearing to be biased against Trump.
In bending over backward to avoid the appearance of anti-Trump bias, Merchan failed in his duty to administer justice without fear or favor and watered the deep-rooted cynicism in the heart of many Black Americans that the system is a bad joke where we’re the only punch lines.
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