A New York appeals court on Monday reduced the $454 million that former President Donald Trump was required to put up while he appeals his civil fraud case. Now Trump must put up, by April 4, a mere $175 million. The trouble is, he may not get a bond for that amount, either. Should that happen, this act of judicial mercy will end up feeling to Trump like a curse.
The stay deprives Trump of the only argument on which he was gaining any traction at all—that the amount the court required him to put up was excessively high. Four hundred and fifty-four million was indeed an unusually large judgment against a private corporation or individual. (The distinction between Trump and the Trump Organization is paper-thin.) Monday’s appeals court decision doesn’t reduce that judgment, as New York State Attorney General Letitia James pointed out in a written statement. But it does dramatically reduce the amount Trump needs to turn over to the state while he pursues his appeal. It also gives us some hint that the appeals court may reduce Judge Arthur Engoron’s $454 million judgment to, well, $175 million.
In many states, there is some variety of recompense for that time, which obviously can’t fully repair the damage of being wrongly imprisoned but at least is better than nothing. It’s not like the courts have a time machine and can retroactively un-imprison someone.
Also, if they’re in prison, then that was a criminal trial, not a civil one. Criminal trials have a much higher standard of evidence (typically unanimous decision of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt by a group of 12 jurors) as opposed to civil trials (typically a judge thinks it was at least slightly more likely than not). The “typically” is there to account for cases like plea bargains (where the accused pleas guilty to lesser charges in exchange for not being tried for the harsher charges) or where the accused requests a bench trial, that sort of thing.
In this case, the ability to appeal at all is conditional on posting a bond, the purpose of which is to prevent the defendant from essentially spending the funds that should go to damages on lawfare instead. That said, it makes a kind of sense to lower the bond, presuming the plaintiff has slow to liquidate assets that are almost certainly in excess of the value of the damages. If I were the judge, I’d also freeze any and all sale or transfer of any of his real estate until after the appeal to ensure he retains the ability to liquidate said real estate in case he loses the appeal or still cannot pay the damages with liquid assets after any reduction from the appeal.