Successfully appeal means his all his convictions are overturned or mistrial is declared.
This market is about the ultimate result, once all appeals are exhausted or not being further pursued by either side.
@Daniel_MC I'm not sure how this would be interpreted for this market. He has a guilty verdict, but no punishment. The link below is a news aggregator that compiles links to sources covering this story.
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Judge sentences Trump to unconditional discharge, no punishment in hush money conviction
@Quroe Description says "Successfully appeal means his all his convictions are overturned or mistrial is declared.
This market is about the ultimate result, once all appeals are exhausted or not being further pursued by either side."
Article says
"President-elect Donald Trump will enter the White House this month as a felon, but will serve no jail time under a sentence handed down this morning in New York for his criminal conviction in a hush-money trial that angered him and his supporters but didn’t prevent him from reclaiming the presidency.
With an unconditional discharge, Trump also will have no incarceration, fine or probation, but his felony conviction still stands."
AFAICS, Neither "his convictions are overturned" nor a "mistrial is declared". He is still a convicted felon.
Zero punishment seems like further efforts to overturn conviction are much much less likely than if there was potential punishment to come. Can we be sure there will be no further efforts to overturn? Would be a five year wait if it is decided to wait before resolving which seems like a long time but not sure that justifies not waiting to see if there are further attempts to overturn convictions.
I think he has 30 days to file notice that he wishes to appeal. We should certainly wait that long. If it is not filed then perhaps it may become possible to say it is "not being further pursued by either side" without waiting 5 years or so?
If appeal notice is filed then there is I think six month to file appeal but this could easily be extended due to presidency. Well I guess wait for the 30 days and see what happens before reaching conclusions on how long this may need to stay open.
@ChristopherRandles that sounds good. I'll wait the 30 days and will research to confirm if your understanding is correct.
Just to clarify the resolution criteria:
I assume the market resolves if Trump successfully appeals the current jury verdict? (I.e., if his convictions are vacated but remanded for a new trial, then it resolves "yes" without depending on the result of the second trial and any subsequent appeal thereof?)
I assume "mistrial" includes the appellate court vacating the conviction and remanding for further proceedings or a new trial, whether or not that's denominated a "mistrial"?
This resolves "yes" if the trial court itself vacates the jury verdict? (Trump has filed a motion requesting that, which the trial court is considering.)
@JohnHughes I am curious what you expect to happen.
I expect sentencing after election. Trump lawyers will then file notice they are going to appeal within 28 days and normally there would then be 6 months to file appeal. If Trump is president this will get delayed until after he is no longer president and /or he likely pardons himself.
Seems likely to resolve no if he is elected president or at least a long 5 year wait before a yes is possible.
If he doesn't win election then perhaps it is possible to resolve yes or no within a year or so but it could still rumble on for 2 or 3 years.
Why are we betting so much on this?
@ChristopherRandles The hush money case is a state court conviction, so even if elected president, he cannot pardon himself. It would have to work its way through the appeals process. The president can only pardon federal convictions, so any pardon for Trump would have to come from Governor Hochul.
Obviously, if he is not elected president, this case just keeps moving along, and yes, the appeals process could take a few years. But we would see a resolution eventually, which we're betting on.
If he is elected president, I think the same timeline basically plays out. After the election, I suppose the trial court judge could decide to vacate his conviction based on the motion he's already filed on account of the Supreme Court immunity decision. (If that happens, the market resolves "yes" but I think that's very unlikely.) More likely, the trial judge goes ahead and "sentences" him. If he's president-elect, any sentence would probably be non-custodial (and if he were given a custodial sentence, the judge would have to basically delay it and say he will not serve the sentence until he finishes his second term as president). Whatever the sentence is, he then has a final judgment of conviction that would be immediately appealable, so you'd go through the same process and eventually get a decision. I wouldn't expect the appeals process to be delayed just because he's president. He doesn't have to be involved in that at all -- his lawyers just brief and argue the appeal -- so there's really no reason that couldn't proceed.
@Daniel_MC Does he have to overturn all of his convictions, or is overturning some of the counts enough?
@Daniel_MC is this only the first court that reviews his appeal, or any court that ever does? So for example if a NY state court rejects the appeal but then the Supreme Court accepts it (don't know if this is actually how it works, just a hypothetical)
@ChristopherRandles to the finding of the highest court that has provided a verdict. (But only once any challenges to the self pardon are no longer being pursued). Think counting a self pardon would just add noise to what this market is trying to predict.