CONAIR

The U.S. Marshall’s Service has a fleet of several Boeing 737 aircraft to fly people in legal custody to prison, to another state, or to court or detention centers, wherever official business requires them to fly.  Illegal aliens in custody are also passengers on these aircraft.  The term for this operation is the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System (JPATS), though informally it is known as Conair (for Convict Air.) More than a quarter of a million transfers take place each year.  Conair was also the title of a 1997 movie thriller based on the mission of these aircraft. These planes are similar, but not identical, to the plane another convicted¹ felon flies as he awaits his sentencing only weeks from now.

Donald J. Trump (alias John Barron, alias John Miller and alias David Dennison²), is that felon due to be sentenced on September 18, less than two months before the presidential election, but two days after early voting states in the battleground state of Pennsylvania begins.  Judge Juan Merchan will sentence Donald Trump on thirty-four felony counts in the Stormy Daniels case (not to be confused with the classified-documents-in-the-toilet-case; the attempt-to-illegally-overturn-the-election case, the sexual-abuse-of-Jean Carroll case³, and the fraudulently-inflate-the-value-of-my-property-to-get-lower-interest-rates-from-the-banks case.)

Everyone is waiting to see what Judge Merchan does.  He has shown himself to be a tough but fair judge throughout the case, and has taken a good deal of verbal abuse from the defendant with grace and patience.  The sentencing date was originally scheduled for July 11th, but following the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. U.S., Judge Merchan pushed the sentencing date to September in order to review if and how the decision might impact the charges on which Mr. Trump was convicted.

The defense wants to postpone sentencing until at least after the election, and possibly until next year when the election and the appeals process is over.  However, if Mr. Trump is elected to be President, he cannot pardon himself in this particular case, because his pardon power is limited to federal crimes, only.  According to USA Today, if Trump is sentenced to jail on any or all of these convictions, he could defer the sentence until he leaves the White House in January 2029 when he will be 82 years old, which would make him older than President Joe Biden is today.

Judge Merchan has several sentencing options, “including community service, home confinement and up to four years in prison . . .”  At this point, most legal scholars do not believe the ex-President will do any time in jail, though this belief is predicated on the fact that no U.S. President has committed such crimes, yet alone, been indicted or convicted and gone to prison, before. In a recent poll, 48% of Americans favor a jail sentence for Mr. Trump while 50% do not.

Former federal judge Nancy Gertner argues against prison sentence for Mr. Trump, because “other defendants who have committed similar offenses, especially first-time offenders, do not receive such a sentence.”  However, Norman Eisen, an attorney for the Democrats who played a role in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment disagrees:

Trump played a lead role in the scheme, has shown no contrition, violated a legally valid gag order during the trial 10 times, and has a history that includes civil verdicts for defamation, sexual assault and fraud. Deterrence of future misconduct for the defendant and others also counsels in favor of prison time, with Trump suggesting he may once again engage in election interference in 2024.”

The next step to be done is for Judge Merchan to rule on the defense’s request to delay sentencing.  Delay (and delay) has been the strategy of the various defense teams in the cases above.  The hope appears to be that if Mr. Trump is elected, he can shut down at least some of the cases against him once he steps back into the Oval Office.  Judge Merchan is aware of this, but it is not easy to know what he might decide with any certainty. Then, too, why did he pick this particular date (with early voting about to begin?) Is it to send a signal that Mr. Trump will get off by paying a hefty fine (which, no doubt, will be covered by the contributions of his followers) or does Judge Merchan intend to have some sort of confinement in mind, either home arrest or elsewhere, and he wants the electorate to be aware of this?

I never wanted Donald Trump to be accused, tried and sentenced for any crime he did not commit.  Where would be the justice in that? But if he did break the law, I wanted him to be treated respectfully, but not with any sense of entitlement and expectation that he could escape the consequences of felonious behavior; either because he was born to a wealthy family or because he served one term as President.  I would not want to be in Judge Merchan’s shoes.  I hope he rules wisely and fairly, regardless of my own personal opinions. From all I know about the man, I am fairly confident that he will.

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FOOTNOTES

¹Merriam-Webster defines the term “convict” as “a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court,” though more commonly it is used synonymously with a prisoner in jail.  At the moment, though Donald J. Trump is legally guilty of the charges, he has not yet been sentenced.  The charges can be found here.

²These are names which Donald J. Trump has used in the past in interviews with members of the press when he did not want to disclose his true identity.

³See Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s remarks on rape vs. sexual assault in this case and why the judge was not persuaded of Mr. Trump’s denials.