Elie Honig, CNN’s Senior Legal Analyst and former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has made a prediction that there is a strong likelihood that the criminal charges against former President Donald Trump in Georgia over his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results may collapse completely following the postponement of the case by the Georgia appellate court.
Honig’s assertion comes after a Georgia appellate court halted the case this week. According to Honig, the appeals court has taken this appeal very seriously, and if Trump and the defendants prevail in the appeal, the case will likely be essentially toast.
Furthermore, if the case is ultimately dismissed, former Trump officials who pleaded guilty early on in the proceedings might want to walk back those pleas. The defense is expected to argue that Fani Willis’ inappropriate comments about the case outside of court impaired the constitutional rights of the defendant and that there needs to be a remedy for that.
The Georgia Court of Appeals officially accepted the case on Monday, announcing October 4th as the preliminary date set for oral arguments. Judges Todd Markle, Trenton Brown, and Benjamin Land were assigned by a computer-generated random selection process to hear what is expected to be the most high-profile appeal in the court’s history.
As noted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the three judges who will hear the case all served as trial judges before being appointed to the appellate court. Ashleigh Merchant, a Marietta attorney, has announced that she will ask the court to hear oral arguments on behalf of Mike Roman, one of Trump’s 14 remaining co-defendants in the racketeering case. Merchant filed in January as the first defense lawyer to move for Willis’ disqualification in the case.
It is not likely that the three-judge appellate panel will issue a verdict before the November presidential election. The Georgia Constitution requires a decision to be made within two terms of court, so the justices would have to decide by mid-March 2025. Though most cases are decided about eight and a half months after they are first docketed, the judges may agree to expedite the process.
