Biden Hunterin conviction on three criminal weapons-related charges presents complicated legal and political challenges – for his father, the president Joe Bidenand for the judicial system as a whole.
The verdict is sure to have repercussions on an already tense and unstable political landscape, coming just two weeks later Donald Trump’s own conviction on criminal charges in New York.
Here are some of the key questions about what comes next.
What happens now?
There are several routine steps that all federal defendants must take after a conviction. First, Biden will have to be interviewed by a probation officer from the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services System. He will be asked about his personal history, mental health and the circumstances that led to his conviction, among other issues.
The probation office will use this information to write a presentence report for Judge Maryellen Noreika, who oversaw the trial and will handle sentencing. After the verdict was issued on Tuesday, Noreika said she hopes to hold a sentencing hearing in about four months.
At some point before the sentencing hearing, prosecutors and Biden’s lawyers will present the judge with sentencing memos that recommend punishment and summarize Biden’s personal and family history, his relationship with his community, and any factors related to his conviction, such as your substance history. Abuse.
After reviewing the attendance report and sentencing memos, the judge will impose a punishment on Biden at a sentencing hearing. Although Biden faces a maximum of 25 years in prison on the three charges, the judge has a menu of sentencing options other than prison, including probation, house arrest or even a curfew.
Will Biden go to prison?
The likelihood of Biden being sentenced to prison is “very low,” said Jeffrey Brown, co-chair of Dechert LLP’s enforcement and litigation practice, who previously served as co-head of the general crimes unit at the Manhattan district attorney’s office. In the USA.
“I think he has a lot of sympathetic factors in his favor that would argue for a non-incarceration sentence,” Brown said. These include Biden’s lack of a criminal record, the likelihood that many people, including some prominent figures, would write to the judge in support of him and the fact that the charges against him are not ones that typically go to trial.
The judge must consider sentencing disparities, Brown said, and “I would be surprised if there was a lot of precedent for people going to trial, being convicted and sentenced to prison for this crime.”
If he is sentenced to prison, will he be able to remain free while he appeals?
Biden has a significant chance of delaying any prison sentence while he appeals the verdict, Brown said. He predicted that if Biden receives a prison sentence, it will be quite short, and judges sometimes allow defendants to defer shorter sentences while they appeal — otherwise the defendant could serve the entire sentence before the appeal is resolved.
Even if Biden can’t delay any prison sentences, Brown said, he may not end up in prison until Election Day. That’s because his sentencing hearing likely won’t take place until October, and after that he would need to be assigned to a prison and given a release date, making it a “close call” whether Biden would be required to report to prison by early November.
“Everything would have to happen very quickly and smoothly for him to be in prison on Election Day,” Brown said.
Can Hunter Biden still vote for his father?
It depends. If Biden is registered to vote in Delaware, it is highly unlikely. The state only allows felons to vote after they have served their entire sentence — including any period of parole or supervised release, which would typically last at least a year. This means that if Biden is convicted about four months after his conviction, he will not be eligible to vote this election cycle.
But Biden has recently been living in California. If he is registered there, the story is different. The state allows felons to register and vote as long as they are not serving time in a local, state or federal prison or detention center. Given that Noreika has signaled that he will hold a sentencing hearing in October, Biden would almost certainly have the chance to vote early, if not vote on Election Day itself, before any potential prison sentence is imposed.
Can Joe Biden pardon his son?
The president said last week that he would not forgive his son.
But he can always go back on that promise. And forgiveness is not his only option.
Presidents have almost unlimited power to pardon federal crimes and can use the pardon power—which is enshrined in the Constitution—for virtually any reason and for anyone, except, perhaps, themselves.
He could also commute any prison sentence his son received, leaving the criminal conviction intact and sparing his son federal prison.
The real question for the president is his view of policy. Pardoning his son after a jury conviction would fuel Republican claims that Democrats have tilted the judicial system in favor of their allies and against their adversaries. It would also appear to conflict with Biden’s praise for the sanctity of the criminal justice system following Trump’s own jury conviction in Manhattan.
Trump himself exercised the pardon power almost exclusively for the benefit of political allies and friends. But it seems certain that Biden’s choice will come at the most delicate moment of his re-election campaign, at a time when his opponent faces federal charges in Washington, DC and Florida.
There is, however, precedent for politically controversial pardons for family members – issued, of course, after an election. In January 2001, on his last day in office, President Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger Clinton Jr. for a 1985 drug conviction.
What about Hunter Biden’s other criminal case?
Special Counsel David Weiss, the Trump-appointed federal prosecutor who brought the gun case, also indicted Biden in a separate case in California. In some ways, this case, which is scheduled to go to trial in September, poses a more serious threat: It accuses him of a wide range of tax crimes spanning years, including failing to timely pay millions of dollars’ worth of taxes. , despite living an extravagant lifestyle.
His conviction in Delaware is unlikely to have a major impact on proceedings in California. While prosecutors could use the underlying evidence that led to his Delaware case as part of an effort to show Biden’s state of mind during the years he allegedly evaded his taxes, evidence from unrelated criminal cases or prior convictions typically does not are allowed as evidence. This is because it could prejudice the jury from convicting someone based on evidence unrelated to the crimes charged.
