Manhattan Criminal Court is seen in New York, Friday, March. 31, 2023.

Yuki Iwamura/AP

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Yuki Iwamura/AP

Manhattan Criminal Court is seen in New York, Friday, March. 31, 2023.

Yuki Iwamura/AP

Now that former President Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in connection to a hush-money fee made to grownup movie actress Stormy Daniels in 2016, consideration will little question flip to his arraignment and potential trial.

The decide dealing with the bizarre and historic case is Juan Manuel Merchan, a veteran of the New York courtroom system who has spent greater than 15 years on the bench and is not any stranger to high-profile prosecutions — significantly these involving Trump and his associates.

This is maybe Merchan’s most noteworthy case but, because it’s the primary time {that a} former U.S. president has ever been charged with against the law.

Trump, who denies any wrongdoing, is expected to appear in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday for his arraignment.

The former president has already aired his opinion in regards to the decide presiding over his case, saying in a post on Truth Social final week that Merchan “hates me” and that the decide “railroaded” Trump’s former chief monetary officer into pleading responsible in a tax fraud case.

Merchan has overseen different instances associated to Trump

Last 12 months, Merchan oversaw the closely-watched legal tax fraud case in opposition to Trump’s firm, which was in the end found guilty by a Manhattan jury. Trump himself was not a defendant in that case.

Two enterprise entities managed by Trump had been discovered responsible of 17 counts of tax fraud and falsifying enterprise information and had been ordered to pay the utmost penalty of $1.61 million.

During the proceedings, Merchan shut down the suggestion from the Trump Organization’s authorized staff that the case was a politically motivated prosecution in opposition to the previous president and instructed attorneys to deal with the precise costs, CBS News reported.

“I will not allow you in any way to bring up a selective prosecution claim, or claim this is some sort of novel prosecution,” Merchan stated.

Former Trump Organization chief monetary officer Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty within the case and served as a star witness for the prosecution. Merchan sentenced him to 5 months in jail, and the decide stated he would have handed down a harsher sentence if he hadn’t already agreed to the plea deal, Politico reported.

Merchan is also overseeing a criminal case in opposition to former Trump aide Steve Bannon, who’s going through fraud and cash laundering costs related to a former charity that promised to assist construct a wall alongside the U.S.-Mexico border. Bannon has pleaded not responsible.

Merchan is a veteran of the New York authorized system

According to the New York Law Journal, Merchan has been an performing justice of the New York Supreme Court since 2009.

“He’s a serious jurist, smart and even tempered,” Manhattan protection lawyer Ron Kuby told NBC News. “He’s not one of those judges who yells at lawyers, and is characterized as a no-nonsense judge. But he’s always in control of the courtroom.”

Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a lawyer who beforehand labored within the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office supervising instances Merchan oversaw, told CNN that Trump possible would not assist his case by publicly criticizing the decide.

Merchan “doesn’t let the prosecutors or the defendants create any issues in his courtroom. He doesn’t let a media circus or any other kind of circus happen. I don’t think Donald Trump attacking him and threatening him is going to bode very well for him in the courtroom,” Agnifilo stated.

“The judge is the kind of judge where he will ignore it and not hold it against Donald Trump. He’s not vindictive in any way like that.”

Merchan was beforehand a household courtroom decide, a New York Assistant Attorney General and an assistant district lawyer for New York County.

He graduated from Baruch College in 1990 and earned his legislation diploma from Hofstra University in 1994.