Former President Donald Trump is charged with 13 felonies in Georgia related to efforts to overturn the result of the state’s 2020 presidential election. Matt Rourke/AP Hide caption
toggle caption
Matt Rourke/AP
Former President Donald Trump is charged with 13 felonies in Georgia related to efforts to overturn the result of the state’s 2020 presidential election.
Matt Rourke/AP
ATLANTA — Former President Donald Trump says he will voluntarily surrender Thursday at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta. Trump faces 13 felonies in Georgia related to efforts to overturn the outcome of the state’s 2020 presidential election.
Trump’s appearance in Georgia would come a day after the Republican primary debate, which he said he is skipping. Trump is currently the Republican Party’s front runner for the 2024 presidential nomination.
The 18 other defendants in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ wide-ranging criminal case have until noon Friday to face their arraignment.
“It doesn’t matter what your status is,” Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat recently told reporters. “We have a mugshot ready for you.”
In Fulton County, a booking appearance is separate from an indictment where a defendant makes their allegations.
For most of the 19 defendants, bail terms were negotiated in advance so they don’t have to wait long in jail for a hearing, says Bob Rubin, a criminal defense attorney in Decatur, Georgia.
On Monday, a judge signed an agreement between prosecutors and Trump’s attorneys that set bail at $200,000.
According to Rubin, bail conditions take into account factors such as a defendant’s risk of absconding, danger to the community, and likelihood of intimidating witnesses or committing another crime.
Trump’s bond agreement requires that he refrain from intimidating co-defendants or witnesses, including through social media. And he is not allowed to communicate with the co-defendants about the facts except through his attorney.
“Even though they say they will treat them the same as everyone else, they will make sure no one gets hurt in this prison,” Rubin says. “It would look really bad, so I’m sure the sheriff’s office will make every effort to separate them from other inmates who may be dangerous.”
The Fulton County Jail, also known as Rice Street Jail, is currently under investigation by the US Department of Justice for possible civil rights violations.
Seven people have died in custody there since the beginning of this year.
Fulton County Sheriff Labat has pledged to cooperate with the federal investigation, saying it vindicates his calls for a new prison.
“I have publicly, privately and repeatedly raised concerns about the prison’s dangerous overcrowding, ailing infrastructure and critical staff shortages,” he said in July.
This month the county reached a settlement with the family of Lashawn Thompson, who died in the prison’s psychiatric ward last year and was found covered in bed bugs. An independent autopsy commissioned by the family found he had died of complications from neglect.
“It’s Third World in a lot of the Fulton County Jail,” says Rubin, who has two clients who have been in jail for more than two years and are awaiting trial.
“You have no way of going outside. There is no sunlight. There is no garden,” says Rubin. “The prison is cold. The prison stinks, as you can imagine. There are water problems. There are space issues. There are dangerous people in prison. It’s a pretty horrible place that sometimes I have nightmares.”
According to the Justice Department, 87 percent of prison inmates are black and the vast majority have not been convicted. Most are awaiting bail hearings or competency assessments, or are denied release pending trial because they cannot post bail.
What’s next in the Trump criminal case?
District Attorney Willis is asking a judge to set a trial date for March 4 in the criminal case against Trump and 18 others.
Willis’ proposed appointment schedule calls for the arraignment to take place the week of September 5 and the trial to begin six months later, a week before the 2024 Republican presidential primary in Georgia.
“I just don’t think that’s practically going to happen,” says Jeffrey Brickman, a criminal defense attorney in Atlanta.
Fulton Superior Court Justice Scott McAfee has been assigned the case and will set the final timeline.
McAfee, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and has been on the bench since February, must juggle scheduling for about 19 defendants and their attorneys, as well as procedures in the three other criminal cases Trump is facing.
McAfee also needs to find time on its own calendar, and Brickman says Fulton County already has a sizeable backlog of cases.
“This isn’t a discussion about people trying to exploit the system and the lag just for the sake of lag,” Brickman says. “It just takes a long time, and I just think so.” [Willis’ timeline] is wishful thinking.”
Other factors could slow the case, such as lengthy jury selection and efforts by Trump and others to move the case from Fulton Superior Court to federal court.
“This case has garnered so much attention that it’s going to take a very, very long time to assemble a jury,” says Brickman. “Nineteen attorneys who may question a jury. So that could take months.”
deportation in federal court
One defendant, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, has already filed a motion to have his case dismissed in federal court. Trump is expected to do the same.
That’s because there is a provision in federal law that allows federal officials to withdraw some prosecutions filed by states in the federal court system.
Jonathan Nash, a law professor at Emory University, says this mechanism dates back to the early 19th century, when resentment against the federal government over taxation and the War of 1812 led to a spate of lawsuits and prosecutions against federal officials who were performing their duties .
“The concern was that states would be allowed to bring something [these] law enforcement that it can actually only affect the work of federal officials,” he said.
According to Nash, the precedent established three basic requirements for deportation in federal court: the accused must have been a federal official; be prosecuted for conduct under the “official colour”; and have a legal defense that relies to some extent on federal law.
“It definitely has merit, I’ll put it that way,” Nash said of Meadows’ request to have the case dropped. “I don’t consider it a frivolous act. He makes arguments that make sense.”
Should those motions be successful, the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office would continue to pursue the case and state statutes would remain contested, but a federal judge would preside.
In the end, it could be US District Judge Steve Jones who has scheduled an Aug. 28 hearing on Meadows’ motion.
The jury would come not only from Fulton County, but also from the 10-county Atlanta Division of the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, which includes some suburban counties that are more Republican-leaning than Fulton County.
Any convictions are not subject to presidential pardon, but only to review by Georgia’s independent review board, which can review pardons five years after a sentence has been served.
