Donald Trump‘s prospects of overturning his felony conviction face uncertainty following the guilty verdict delivered on May 30 for his role in falsifying business documents to conceal hush money payments to former adult star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Speculation about the appeal process arose Friday on X (formerly Twitter) when a user named Alex Cole hypothesized that an all-Black women’s appeal panel might preside over Trump’s hearing if he should decide to overturn his conviction.
According to AP News, the appeal hearing would proceed to the First Division of New York’s Supreme Appellate Court, where five Black women justices are appointed.
Cole, a software engineer based in Los Angeles and editor at Newsitics, shared a picture featuring the five Black women justices presently serving on the New York State Appellate Court, First Judicial Department bench. The image captured a moment from February when the groundbreaking team, led by presiding Justice Dianne T. Renwick and including Associate Justices Troy K. Webber, Tanya R. Kennedy, Bahaati Pitt-Burke, and Marsha D. Michael, convened as the first all-African American bench in history to hear appeal arguments across various cases at the First Department’s courthouse in Manhattan’s Madison Square Park,Law.com highlighted.
“MAGA: Trump will win on appeal! This is what the Manhattan appeal court looks like,” Cole wrote, hinting that the former president would stand no chance at getting out of his conviction when up against the all-Black female appeals team.
According to Newsweek, when one X user suggested “Cole was admitting ‘clear bias,’ he replied: ‘No, Black women follow the law and don’t take b******* from Trump and his field of liars.’”
Trump’s history with Black women
If Trump were to face the all-Black women-led appeal court team, his prospects of escaping conviction unscathed might be slim, given his track record of verbally attacking Black women in influential positions. Trump has a documented history of demeaning and denigrating Black women both in public forums and on his various social media platforms. One notable instance occurred in 2020 when he targeted Yamiche Alcindor during a press briefing concerning the coronavirus crisis.
Trump admonished Alcindor to “be nice” and accused her of being “threatening” right after she questioned him about his skepticism regarding New York City’s ventilator requirements during the pandemic peak. In a separate incident in 2019, he directed his ire at Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, the first Muslim woman elected to Congress, and Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley, both members of a group of freshman congresswomen of color colloquially referred to as “The Squad.” Trump’s xenophobic and racist Twitter tirades in July 2019 essentially urged them to “go back” to their supposed places of origin.
Trump’s hush money sentencing is set for July 11.
Each of the 34 felony charges carries a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine and a four-year prison term, though it’s uncertain whether he will be incarcerated for the offenses.
SEE ALSO:
NAACP Calls For ‘Unfit’ Trump To Drop Out Of Presidential Race After Criminal Conviction
‘Hallelujah!!!’ Maxine Waters Rejoices That Trump Was Convicted In Hush Money Trial
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