The editorial board recently highlighted the need for the Supreme Court to reach a swift resolution in considering Donald Trump’s extraordinary claim that he has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for all time and for anything he might do, even after leaving office.
However far-fetched that claim might be, it has reached the Supreme Court, and until the justices issue their ruling on it, Trump’s criminal trial for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol cannot go forward. Every day of delay will diminish the chances of reaching a verdict in that case before Election Day.
The justices have so far “not set a particularly speedy schedule,” as my colleague Adam Liptak reported. The court gave Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting Trump, until next Tuesday to respond to Trump’s emergency application asking it to reject the appeals court ruling.
As the editorial noted, “This isn’t some arcane legal dispute. Millions of Americans are waiting anxiously to find out whether one of the two likely major-party candidates for president is convicted of trying to overturn a free and fair election. A recent Gallup poll found that 70 percent of all American voters, and nearly as many Republican voters, would not vote for a candidate who had been found guilty of a felony.”
Trump’s lawyers are fully aware of how important that verdict is to his chances of winning election. That’s why, in their filing, they have tried to portray the special counsel’s request for speed as politically motivated: “Conducting a monthslong criminal trial of President Trump at the height of election season,” the filing said, “will radically disrupt President Trump’s ability to campaign against President Biden — which appears to be the whole point of the special counsel’s persistent demands for expedition.”
That last assertion is mistaken; the “whole point” of Smith’s demands is to ensure a speedy trial, something that every defendant, including a former president, is entitled to. One of the core principles of the American justice system is that justice delayed is justice denied. Smith may respond quickly, even before a week is up, which would give the Supreme Court another chance to do the same.