The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New York judge braces for glare of unprecedented trial
NEW YORK — Inside a dreary lower Manhattan courtroom on a recent Wednesday, Justice Juan M. Merchan convened a special session for people with mental health troubles who had landed in legal jeopardy. He calmly counseled them, praised any signs of progress and shook the hand of one man who, thanks to medication, had turned his life around.
But on April 15, a different type of criminal defendant will enter the same courtroom and test the judge’s equanimity: Donald Trump.
Trump’s trial on charges that he covered up a sex scandal before and after the 2016 presidential election will bring a weekslong maelstrom that no other judge in New York’s vast judiciary has ever experienced. It will be the first prosecution of a former U.S. president, a man who revels in attacking the legal system and its judges.
Since the Manhattan district attorney charged Trump last year, the former president has used campaign emails, social media invective and repetitive legal filings to attack the judge’s integrity and family. Last week, the former president demanded for a second time that Merchan step aside, citing his daughter’s position at a Democratic consulting firm that worked for President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.
Known as a no-nonsense, drama-averse jurist, Merchan, 61, could reject the recusal request in the coming days, as he has so many of Trump’s last-ditch bids to delay the trial. Merchan, who has already reprimanded Trump’s lawyers for arguments that he considered frivolous, has also issued a gag order to try to protect prosecutors, witnesses and his own family from Trump’s vitriol — and yet the former president has continued to post articles with pictures of the judge’s daughter.
The turmoil punctuates the former president’s yearslong assault on the judiciary, an antipathy that intensified with his political rise and mounting legal peril. Facing four criminal indictments in four different cities, he has demonized the judicial system, stoking anger in his base as he seeks to retake the White House as the presumptive Republican nominee this year.
Although Merchan is a registered Democrat, records show he was previously a Republican, and people who know him described him as a moderate, law-and-order former prosecutor.
Two people close to Merchan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the judge had privately expressed pain over the attacks on his daughter, but they said those attacks won’t compromise his ability to oversee the case. Other people who know him said he will cast aside Trump’s drama — and exert control over the trial.
“It is Judge Merchan’s show,” said Jill Konviser, a retired judge
who has known Merchan for more than 15 years. While declining to discuss Merchan’s personal feelings, she added: “He will do everything he can to, one, control his courtroom, and two, ensure a fair trial for the defendant.”
Konviser acknowledged, however, that Trump is “not like every other defendant,” adding, “He’s the former president of the U.S., and he has chosen to make this process eminently more challenging.”
Trump often directs his harshest condemnations at judicial officials who are women or minorities, including Merchan, who was born in Bogota, Colombia, but raised primarily in Queens, as Trump was.
In 2016, Trump attacked Gonzalo Curiel, who was handling a fraud case involving Trump’s forprofit education venture, referring to him as “a Mexican judge” and demanding his recusal partly because of his heritage.
Tanya Chutkan, who oversees a federal case in Washington accusing the former president of plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss, is Black. Trump has called her “a fraud dressed up as a judge.”
And last year, Trump targeted the principal law clerk of the judge in a Manhattan civil fraud trial, posting a photo of the clerk next to Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the Senate majority leader, and falsely calling her “Schumer’s girlfriend.”
One of the few judges to escape his ire is Aileen Cannon, the federal judge in Florida who is presiding over a criminal case in which he is accused of mishandling classified documents. Trump praised her as “highly respected.” He had appointed her to the bench.
In Merchan’s 17 years on the bench, 13 as presiding judge in the Mental Health Court he created, he has had his share of unusual cases. There was a murder trial involving a supposed curse on the defendant; the daredevils who jumped off the World Trade Center with parachutes; and a so-called soccer-mom madam accused of running a high-end brothel on the Upper East Side. In that case, an appeals court reduced the steep bail Merchan had set, calling it “unreasonable.”
During Trump’s trial, Merchan will be in charge of keeping order in the courtroom and ruling on objections made by both sides, but a jury will decide whether Trump is guilty.
The trial, which could last two months as a parade of former aides and allies takes the stand against him, will dominate Merchan’s calendar this spring, with testimony planned for every weekday but Wednesday. On off-days, he will continue to preside over Mental Health Court.
The program is for defendants charged with felonies and diagnosed with a serious mental illness. People who are accepted enter a guilty plea and begin a period of treatment and judicial supervision. Those who complete the program successfully can have their charges reduced or dismissed.
On a recent Wednesday, Merchan recognized the last court appearance of the man who, according to his lawyer, had been “saved” by medication.
“It’s always been a pleasure having you here,” Merchan told the man, who was in his early 30s and had been charged with assault. “I’m just very confident you’re going to do well.”
Merchan showed particular interest in the relationship between another defendant and his child, and praised him for his dedication.
“You want to do better by your daughter,” Merchan said. “I’m sure she’s going to appreciate that.”
During Trump’s trial, Merchan will be in charge of keeping order in the courtroom and ruling on objections made by both sides, but a jury will decide whether Trump is guilty.