state court

NEW YORK — A federal appeals court on Thursday gave new life to President Trump’s bid to erase his hush money conviction, ordering a lower court to reconsider its decision to keep the case in state court instead of moving it to federal court.

A three-judge panel in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein erred by failing to consider “important issues relevant” to Trump’s request to move the New York case to federal court, where he can seek to have it thrown out on presidential immunity grounds.

But, the appeals court judges said, they “express no view” on how Hellerstein should rule.

Hellerstein, who was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton, twice denied Trump’s requests to move the case. The first time was after Trump’s March 2023 indictment; the second followed Trump’s May 2024 conviction and a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that presidents and former presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts.

In the later ruling, at issue in Thursday’s decision, Hellerstein said Trump’s lawyers had failed to meet the high burden of proof for changing jurisdiction and that Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records involved his personal life, not official actions that the Supreme Court ruled are immune from prosecution.

Hellerstein’s ruling, which echoed his previous denial, “did not consider whether certain evidence admitted during the state court trial relates to immunized official acts or, if so, whether evidentiary immunity transformed” the hush money case into one that relates to official acts, the appeals court panel said.

The three judges said Hellerstein should closely review evidence that Trump claims relate to official acts.

If Hellerstein finds the prosecution relied on evidence of official acts, the judges said, he should weigh whether Trump can argue those actions were taken as part of his White House duties, whether Trump “diligently sought” to have the case moved to federal court and whether the case can even be moved to federal court now that Trump has been convicted and sentenced in state court.

Ruling came after oral arguments in June

Judges Susan L. Carney, Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and Myrna Pérez made their ruling after hearing arguments in June, when they spent more than an hour grilling Trump’s lawyer and the appellate chief for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which prosecuted the case and wants it to remain in state court.

Carney and Lohier were nominated to the court by Democratic President Barack Obama. Pérez was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden.

“President Trump continues to win in his fight against Radical Democrat Lawfare,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement. “The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be immediately overturned and dismissed.”

Bragg’s office declined to comment.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose allegations of an affair with Trump threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies her claim, said he did nothing wrong and has asked a state appellate court to overturn the conviction.

It was the only one of the Republican’s four criminal cases to go to trial.

Trump team cites Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity

In trying to move the hush money case to federal court, Trump’s lawyers argued that federal officers, including former presidents, have the right to be tried in federal court for charges arising from “conduct performed while in office.” Part of the criminal case involved checks that Trump wrote while he was president.

Trump’s lawyer, Jeffrey Wall, argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision. He also said they erred by showing jurors evidence that should not have been allowed under that ruling, such as former White House staffers describing how Trump reacted to news coverage of the hush money deal and tweets he sent while president in 2018.

“The district attorney holds the keys in his hand,” Wall told the three-judge panel in June. “He doesn’t have to introduce this evidence.”

In addition to reining in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts, the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling restricted prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.

Wall, a former acting U.S. solicitor general, called the president “a class of one,” telling the judges that “everything about this cries out for federal court.”

Steven Wu, the appellate chief for the district attorney’s office, countered that Trump was too late in seeking to move the case to federal court. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment. Exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown.

Hellerstein concluded that Trump hadn’t shown “good cause” to request a move to federal court as such a late stage. But the three-judge panel on Thursday said it “cannot be confident” that the judge “adequately considered issues” relevant to making that decision.

Wall, addressing the delay at oral arguments, said Trump’s team did not immediately seek to move the case to federal court because the defense was trying to resolve the matter by raising the immunity argument with the trial judge, Juan Merchan.

Merchan rejected Trump’s request to throw out the conviction on immunity grounds and sentenced him Jan. 10 to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.

BALTIMORE — A federal lawsuit could open a new chapter in an escalating legal battle in Maryland, where officials are struggling to address an unexpected onslaught of claims alleging child sexual abuse in state-run juvenile detention facilities.

With thousands of similar claims already pending in state court, the litigation has raised questions about how Maryland will handle the potential financial liability.

The new federal suit, filed Wednesday on behalf of three plaintiffs, seeks $300 million in damages — an amount that far exceeds caps imposed on claims filed in state court. It alleges Maryland juvenile justice leaders knew about a culture of abuse inside youth detention facilities and failed to address it, violating the plaintiffs’ civil rights.

A message seeking comment was left Thursday with the state’s Department of Juvenile Services. The department generally doesn’t comment on pending litigation. The Maryland Office of the Attorney General declined to comment.

An estimated 11,000 plaintiffs have sued in state court, according to the attorneys involved. Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson said Wednesday that he believes negotiations for a potential settlement are ongoing between attorneys for the plaintiffs and the attorney general’s office. Officials have said the state is facing a potential liability between $3 billion and $4 billion.

Lawsuits started pouring in after a state law passed in 2023 eliminated the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse claims in Maryland. The change came in the immediate aftermath of a scathing investigative report that revealed widespread abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore. It prompted the archdiocese to file for bankruptcy to protect its assets.

But Maryland leaders didn’t anticipate they’d be facing similar budgetary concerns because of claims against the state’s juvenile justice system.

Facing a potentially enormous payout, lawmakers recently passed an amendment to limit future liabilities. The new law reduces caps on settlements from $890,000 to $400,000 for cases filed after May 31 against state institutions, and from $1.5 million to $700,000 for private institutions. It allows each claimant to receive only one payment, instead of being able to collect for each act of abuse.

Suing in federal court allows plaintiffs to sidestep those limits.

“Despite Maryland’s recent unconstitutional legislative efforts to insulate itself from liability for the horrific sexual brutalization of children in its custody, Maryland cannot run from liability under Federal law,” plaintiffs’ attorney Corey Stern said in a statement. “The United States Constitution was created for all of us, knowing that some would need protection from the tyranny of their political leaders.”

The three plaintiffs in the federal case allege they were sexually abused by staff at two juvenile detention centers. While other lawsuits have mainly presented allegations of abuse occurring decades ago, the federal complaint focuses on events alleged to have happened in 2019 and 2020. The plaintiffs were 14 and 15 years old.

The victims feared their sentences would be extended if they spoke out, according to the complaint. They accuse state officials of turning a blind eye to a “culture of sexual brutalization and abuse.”

Stern said he anticipates more federal claims will be forthcoming.

Skene writes for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — As President Trump focuses on global trade deals and dispatching troops to aid his immigration crackdown, his lawyers are fighting to erase the hush money criminal conviction that punctuated his reelection campaign last year and made him the first former — and now current — U.S. president found guilty of a crime.

On Wednesday, that fight landed in a federal appeals court in Manhattan, where a three-judge panel heard arguments in Trump’s long-running bid to get the New York case moved from state court to federal court so he can then seek to have it thrown out on presidential immunity grounds.

It’s one way he’s trying to get the historic verdict overturned.

The judges in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals spent more than an hour grilling Trump’s lawyer and the appellate chief for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case and wants it to remain in state court.

At turns skeptical and receptive to both sides’ arguments on the weighty and seldom-tested legal issues underlying the president’s request, the judges said they would take the matter under advisement and issue a ruling at a later date.

But there was at least one thing all parties agreed on: It is a highly unusual case.

Trump lawyer Jeffrey Wall called the president “a class of one” and Judge Susan L. Carney noted that it was “anomalous” for a defendant to seek to transfer a case to federal court after it has been decided in state court.

Carney was nominated to the 2nd Circuit by Democratic President Obama. The other judges who heard arguments, Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and Myrna Pérez, were nominated by Obama and Democratic President Biden, respectively.

The Republican president is asking the federal appeals court to intervene after a lower-court judge twice rejected the move. As part of the request, Trump wants the court to seize control of the criminal case and then ultimately decide his appeal of the verdict, which is now pending in a state appellate court.

Trump’s Justice Department — now partly run by his former criminal defense lawyers — backs his bid to move the case to federal court. If he loses, he could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Everything about this cries out for federal court,” Wall argued.

Wall, a former acting U.S. solicitor general, argued that Trump’s historic prosecution violated the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, which was decided last July, about a month after the hush money verdict. The ruling reined in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts and restricted prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.

Trump’s lawyers argue that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, and that they erred by showing jurors evidence that should not have been allowed under the ruling, such as former White House staffers describing how Trump reacted to news coverage of the hush money deal and tweets he sent while president in 2018.

“The district attorney holds the keys in his hand,” Wall argued. “He doesn’t have to introduce this evidence.”

Steven Wu, the appellate chief for the district attorney’s office, countered that Trump was too late in seeking to move the case to federal court. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment, but a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., recently ruled that exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown. Trump hasn’t done that, Wu argued.

While “this defendant is an unusual defendant,” Wu said, there is nothing unusual about a defendant raising subsequent court decisions, such as the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling for Trump, when they appeal their convictions. That appeal, he argued, should stay in state court.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies her claim and said he did nothing wrong. It was the only one of his four criminal cases to go to trial.

Trump’s lawyers first sought to move the case to federal court following his March 2023 indictment, arguing that federal officers including former presidents have the right to be tried in federal court for charges arising from “conduct performed while in office.” Part of the criminal case involved checks he wrote while he was president.

They tried again after his conviction, about two months after the Supreme Court issued its immunity ruling.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who was nominated by Democratic President Clinton, denied both requests, ruling in part that Trump’s conviction involved his personal life, not his work as president.

Wu argued Wednesday that Trump and his lawyers should’ve acted more immediately after the Supreme Court ruled, and that by waiting they waived their right to seek a transfer. Wall responded that they delayed seeking to move the case to federal court because they were trying to resolve the matter by raising the immunity argument with the trial judge, Juan Merchan.

Merchan ultimately rejected Trump’s request to throw out the conviction on immunity grounds and sentenced him on Jan. 10 to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.