Well, Trump has been convicted. So what exactly happens next? Trump's legal team expected to be back in court next week as they appeal the judge's ruling that Trump violated the gag order. Now, three weeks after that, it's the first presidential debate right here on CNN. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11th. That's just four days before the Republican National Convention even begins in Milwaukee. That's all well and good, by the way. But there are still burning questions at the top of everyone's mind, like, can he still run for president? Well, yes, according to the Constitution. Is he eligible to vote? Well, that's questionable and can depend on how sentencing ultimately goes. And will Trump go to prison? Well, we don't yet know. Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg didn't say if he would actually be seeking prison time, but that's in the hands of the judge. With me now, retired California Superior Court Judge La Doris Cordell. She's the author of Her Honor My Life on the Bench. Your Honor, thank you for joining me this evening. Sentencing is coming up about a little more than a month away. The big question on everyone's mind is will the judge in that case include prison in the punishment? It could be as high as 20 years total, up to four per charge now. Would you impose a incarceration sentence before I can answer that, it's important to understand what a judge considers at sentencing, and this is just solely Judge Mershon. So judges are supposed to look at mitigating factors, aggravating factors. If there are a lot of mitigating factors, that means a more lenient sentence. If they're aggravators, that means a harsher sentence. So if you look very quickly at mitigating factors for Donald Trump, well, there's his age. He's a senior citizen. He's almost 80 years old. He's a first time offender. That's a mitigator. And he's also not this is not a violent offense, although his words have encouraged violence. So then on the aggravators side, you have, first of all, the number of victims. And these are voters who are bamboozled because of this hush money, the cover up. There's the the contempt citations, almost a dozen where he has violated court orders and then there's an issue of recidivism. Is he likely to repeat on a scale of 1 to 10? I gave it a ten. Yes. This man is likely to do all of this kind of stuff again. And finally, a judge looks for remorse. Contrition. You get up in front of a judge and say, I'm so sorry I did this. I shouldn't have done it. Do you think Donald Trump is going to get up in front of Judge Mershon, whom he has denigrated repeatedly and do that? No. So if bodes, in my view, if these are the aggravators and mitigators that the judge is definitely going to not just say, okay, give you a slap on the wrist, go home, I'll put you on probation for a month. That is not going to happen. So a lot depends on the behavior of Donald Trump when he's in front of the person. He has been insulting repeatedly all through this trial. Would you consider at all the fact that he is a presidential candidate or even change his sentencing date to beyond the Republican convention? To things Republican convention? No, I would not change his sentencing date. He's a criminal defendant. He's been convicted. Let them change the date for the convention. Secondly, with regard to treating him differently, all I can say is that if you're a judge and you're fair, if you had a low income defendant in front of you who was not remorseful, who called you names, who attacked you, you would impose a harsh sentence. How is that any different from a wealthy man like Donald Trump who has done and may do the same thing? So if we want the public to believe and have trust in the system, it cannot have a double standard. So what's good for the low income person who doesn't behave well is good for this wealthy man who doesn't who may not behave well in court as well. So, yeah, I mean, absolutely. Get your toothbrush and maybe he's going to call his heels for a while, depending upon his behavior. I mean, to argue the alternative would be to concede that you do have a two tiered system of justice. Judge Cordell, thank you so much. Thank you. My panel is back with me now. I mean, she's talking about changing the convention. Obviously, if the judge resigned things the same way that she does. Donald Trump is facing actual prison time. That was remarkable. First of all, by judge court, I mean perfect, prescient analysis by a wonderful judge who has done this job. It's going to be such a difficult call for Judge Mershon. I mean, we've looked at sort of broader studies. There's no case quite exactly like this. But if you look at the comparable pool of cases, the majority of defendants, somewhere in that 70 to 90% convicted of comparable crimes do not get prison time in this in the New York system. But I think the judge just articulated the contrary argument. To me, it feels like a coin toss. What Judge Mershon does here, 5050. The other really important 34 counts for the is 34 guilty counts, 34 guilty counts in a felony. He that matters. He has been held in contempt ten times before this judge. That's that's not a normal thing. I personally have never had a defendant be held in contempt and then not just get put in ten times. That's a huge deal. He has three open indictments, federal and state crimes. Right. And other jurors with the presumption of innocence, though, is a factor in a of course, it factors in. But but in in this particular case, the jury said this was not a porn star hush money case. The jury said he interfered with an election. And so that is a it doesn't get more serious than that. So I think this is one of those 10 to 30 percents that if his name wasn't Donald J. Trump, he would have been incarcerated a long time ago, given his conduct and this and who he is in these charge. That's not fair. They did not specify what their basis was. They did not make a finding that he interfered with the election. That's just not true. They found falsification of business records for some other unnamed crime. That's correct. There wasn't a special verdict form. And so we don't know what target offense they think it might have been. It may have been for the tax you know, the tax code. It may have been for falsification of the records. So we don't know. And they never had to agree unanimously on that point. Correct. Exactly. And so without having that special verdict form, we don't know what they actually convicted him of. You know, under what theory. Now, I do think that she makes a great point there that I had not heard before about the difference in a low income defendant versus a wealthy defendant with this type of circumstance. I'll tell you one thing going and I've done sentencing before, Judge Mershon before. I would not suggest the defendant's speak at the sentencing. Of course, that's his right, whether he wants to speak or not, even to say he's remorseful, which I think he might say. But for that reason, that's that's the point. I don't think he would say that. So that's why you don't want him to talk. You're going to instead, you know, say that, you know, my my client does still maintain his innocence and he's going through the appellate process. We do believe that there are certain appellate issues here. So don't hold that against him, but instead focus on issues such as the history and characteristics of the defendant, you know, lack of criminal history, all of those types of things. Lanny, you're smiling. Why? Well, first of all, when I heard the congressman talk about a double standard and didn't answer your question, this is a state prosecution about the grand jury indictment and the very same crime that the federal prosecutors sent Michael Cohen to prison for is being disparaged. And it's called political when it applies to Mr. Trump. So if you read the federal prosecutors sentencing memorandum of Mr. Cohen, it was very harsh because they call this an attack on democracy, not about hush money and sex. So I would at least suggest to anyone they considered this to be a double standard. This is New York state. It's a crime. Mr. Trump cannot pardon himself of this crime. And what Mr. Cohen did is serve time. Federal prosecutors working for Trump's Justice Department said that Mr. and Ellie and I have disagreed on this, that Mr. Trump directed Michael Cohen, who did the time. Now, Mr. Trump has to face the issue is, will he do the time? Well, to be clear, his federal conviction was not just for the the FEC violation and one of many and the other allegations of fraud, allegations, attacks, taxi medallions, the sentencing guidelines on those were so high that the FEC violation didn't even really move the guidelines up. So he primarily went to jail for the other offenses. I don't know about you all, but I'm so curious just to hear potentially one day from one of the jurors to see what went into their whole consideration. It's obviously their right not to say anything, but I certainly hope we will get some insight in the future as to what went into this historic decision to convict by 34 counts, a former president of the United States. Thank you to everyone.
