US Appeals Court Resurrects Trump’s Attempt To Dismiss NY Criminal Conviction

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

A U.S. appeals court on Thursday revived President Donald Trump’s bid to dismiss his business records criminal conviction, ruling the president can move his case out of a New York state court.

A panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed an order from a lower court judge, saying the judge had “bypassed what we consider to be important issues bearing on the ultimate issue of good cause.”

The panel of judges on the appeals court signaled that it did not weigh in on the merits of Trump’s lawyers’ arguments to dismiss the conviction. His lawyers filed court papers earlier this year to try to move the case out of New York so he could seek a ruling from a federal judge on whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity allows him to toss last year’s Manhattan jury verdict convicting him of falsifying business records.

“We leave it to the able and experienced District Judge to decide whether to solicit further briefing from the parties or hold a hearing to help it resolve these issues,” the appeals court judges wrote.

The panel further said the lower court “should resolve Trump’s motion for leave to file a second removal notice in any particular way” and said it should “consider the motion anew in light of our opinion.”

In May 2024, a jury convicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Trump pleaded not guilty, maintaining that it was part of a widespread attempt to subvert his 2024 presidential campaign.

Weeks after Trump’s election victory in 2024, the judge in the case sentenced him to unconditional discharge, meaning that he faced no further penalties such as fines or jail time. The conviction, however, will remain on his criminal record.

Just days before Trump was inaugurated in January, Judge Juan Merchan noted in his order that the sentence was made with considerations of Trump being elected president.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied a bid from Trump’s attorneys to remove the case, prompting Trump’s appeal. The judge maintained that Trump had “not satisfied the burden of proof required to show the basis of removal.”

The petition to the U.S. appeals court is one of many appeals that Trump has filed to dismiss the criminal conviction.

Separately, Trump had filed court papers with the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division of the First District, appealing the criminal conviction.

“Targeting alleged conduct that has never been found to violate any New York law, the DA [district attorney] concocted a purported felony by stacking time-barred misdemeanors under a convoluted legal theory, which the DA then improperly obscured until the charge conference. This case should never have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone resulted in a conviction,” his lawyers wrote in a filing in October.

Aside from the Manhattan case, criminal charges were also brought against Trump in Washington, Florida, and Georgia. The Washington and Florida cases, which were brought by former special counsel Jack Smith, were later dropped. The Georgia case, brought by the Fulton County District Attorney’s office, was dismissed by a state appeals court on Jan. 17, three days before Trump’s inauguration.