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- Donald Trump has been charged with 78 crimes and pleaded not guilty to all.
- Professor Kevin McMunigal said he thinks Trump’s chance of avoiding all charges is “zero.”
- The maximum sentence for all the charges would be 650 years in prison.
Former President Donald Trump’s third indictment brought the total number of charges he faces to just under 80. But even if convicted, he likely would only serve a fraction of the time for each charge, experts say.
Trump’s three indictments span a wide range of state and federal charges, with the first linked to a payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, the second to the removal of classified documents from the White House to his home at Mar-a-Lago, and the third relating to efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
If Trump were convicted on all counts and given the maximum penalty for each, he would face nearly 641 years in prison, according to Politico’s calculations. This does not include the additional charges he could face in Georgia, where he may be indicted later this year in connection to his attempts to overturn the state’s election results in 2020, according to reporting from CNN.
This hypothetical figure, though, does not address the complications of sentencing and convictions.
Jared Carter, a law professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School, told Insider the nearly 650-year figure was “never going to happen.”
“Trump, if he were convicted of every single crime that he’s been charged with, is looking at significantly less than that,” Carter said. “That’s not to say that people who have been convicted of some of these crimes in recent years didn’t get lengthy prison sentences, we’re just not talking about 641 years.”
Kevin McMunigal, a former federal prosecutor in California’s Northern District and current professor of criminal law at Case Western Reserve University, told Insider the chance that Trump evades all charges is “absolutely zero,” but noted that unique issues would arise with punishing Trump if convicted.
For one thing, McMunigal said, Trump has no prior criminal records, which usually leads to lighter sentencing; for another, he is 77 years old. According to the US Sentencing Commission, older offenders are more likely to get fines or alternative sentences than imprisonment.
Carter also added that a judge could sentence someone convicted of multiple crimes to serve those sentences concurrently or separately, meaning that sentences could be served simultaneously, reducing the time in prison, or one after the other.
Additionally, McMunigal said, Trump would need to be surrounded by Secret Service agents, even while incarcerated.
However, McMunigal noted that Trump does face multiple charges, and judges will consider the seriousness of an offense when considering sentencing.
“The idea of overturning an election in the US is an incredibly serious offense,” McMunigal said, referring to Trump’s election fraud charges.
McMunigal suggested as an alternative, a judge could sentence Trump to house arrest or a low-security prison.
He added that Trump would not necessarily be banned from holding office, depending on which conviction he could receive.
“It depends on the statute,” McMunigal said. “The general conspiracy statute that he’s charged under doesn’t say anything about whether or not he could run for office or hold office.”
Ultimately, McMunigal said, he believes Trump will face prison time or similar consequences, like house arrest if found guilty, even if he receives less time than maximum sentencing recommendations.
“He’s going to be facing these indictments with really strong evidence in four different courts,” McMunigal said. “A lot of people think, ‘oh, you know, he is so connected that’s gonna really help him out, and eventually he’ll figure his way out of this.’ I don’t think that’s true.”
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