E. Jean Carroll secures crucial last minute appeals court decision ahead of Donald Trump trial

| 5:30 pm EDT April 21, 2023
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The thing about trying to endlessly delay your own trials is that the number of meaningful appeals you can file is finite. At some point the courts have simply had enough of your antics, and your trial gets locked in for a certain start date no matter what else you might try.

We’ve seen this time and again over the past couple weeks, in which Donald Trump and his attorneys filed appeal after last minute appeal to try to delay the start of Trump’s civil trial against his accuser E. Jean Carroll. Each of these last minute filings has gone nowhere, and bought Trump zero days. The judge has been shooting down these filings in real time, without delaying the scheduled start of the trial by even a day.

But there was still one pending appeal that was somewhat concerning in terms of delaying the trial. Last week the U.S. Court of Appeals declined to take any position on whether Trump’s past presidency somehow shielded him from this civil suit. It wasn’t 100% clear where this left things. But today the appeals court kicked the case back to the original judge, who already decided awhile ago that Trump has no such protection. By default this means the case is good to go.

So while anything is still theoretically possible, there is now every reason to expect that the Trump v. Carroll trial will indeed begin as expected next week. Remember, this is a civil trial. It’s a very important and groundbreaking civil trial, but it’s not a criminal trial. There are no criminal charges attached. Even if Carroll wins, it’ll simply be a judgment in her favor. Trump won’t leave in handcuffs; it’s not that kind of trial. Trump’s criminal trials – the ones that can end with him leaving in handcuffs – will come later.