Trump Is Indicted: Here’s What Happens to Him Next in Court

Following the indictment of former President Donald Trump by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office on Thursday, legal experts have explained the next steps in court. Some have suggested that the former president could be required to have his mugshot taken.

As analysts have explained, when someone is indicted, the charges are kept confidential by a judge until the defendant’s first court appearance. It is unclear what charges Trump faces because they have not been made public yet.

The Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, stated late on Thursday that Trump’s lawyers had been informed about the indictment. “This evening, we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender… for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “Guidance will be provided when the arraignment date is selected.”

According to Joe Tacopina, Trump’s attorney, the former president is expected to be arraigned in New York City early next week. He suggested that April 4th, which is two weeks after the initial predicted arrest date, could be Trump’s arraignment date.

Prosecutors and Trump’s legal team are currently negotiating a surrender date, which would require Trump to travel from his Florida home to the district attorney’s office in New York to have his fingerprints and photograph taken.

Trump would then appear in court, where he would be officially charged. Experts suggest that he would likely be permitted to return home afterward.

Mugshot?

“He would be arraigned, face a trial date, and face a jury verdict just like anyone else,” said Andrea Roth, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in a statement. “He would have no more or fewer procedural protections than other defendants, and the state has the same powers — subpoena power, for example — it would normally have.”

She also said that “the case will be high-profile, but other high-profile defendants have been successfully prosecuted,” adding that “the defense attorneys will surely raise numerous issues, from intent to defraud to a statute of limitations bar, but that is also true in most high-profile cases. The New York case also has no formal consequence for the election; you can be an indicted or even convicted person and run for president. Eugene Debs, a Socialist candidate, ran from prison in the early 1900s.”

Former Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax earlier this month: “He will be mugshot and fingerprinted. There’s really no way around that.” However, he suggested that Trump could use that photo as a campaign poster for his 2024 presidential campaign.

The U.S. Constitution does not prohibit a convicted felon from holding political office. It only stipulates that the candidate must be 35 years of age or older, a natural-born citizen of America, and must have been residing in the US for at least 14 years.

Craig Green, a law professor at the University of Connecticut, told 6ABC that Trump would “surrender and be photographed, and fingerprinted, and he will make bail, and then he will leave the courthouse.” After that, he said that standard legal proceedings would be followed.

However, some analysts warn that it remains unclear what the arraignment will entail. In some cases, a defendant is handcuffed and taken into custody, while in others, they are allowed to remain free with certain restrictions. The situation is expected to become clearer in the coming days.