Experts: Months of 'quiet' in store for Trump case as it winds through system

After former President Donald Trump's arraignment on criminal charges on Tuesday, expect months of "relative quiet" in the case marked by legal challenges from defense lawyers, evidentiary rulings by Acting Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and requests for protection orders, legal experts said.

Trump, who pleaded not guilty to 34 felonies on Tuesday, is not scheduled to be in court until Dec. 4. Merchan set the next court date after Trump pleaded not guilty at his arraignment at a Manhattan criminal court. That's about two months before the first Republican presidential contests are scheduled.

After the anticipated news media circus in Manhattan on Tuesday, prosecutors and defense attorneys will engage in a tedious process of filing and responding to pretrial motions, experts told Newsday.

Given that Trump is likely to remain free before his trial, and to file many legal challenges, it may be months between his arraignment Tuesday until a jury is selected and a trial begins.

"The process will be very slow, beginning tomorrow," James Sample, a Hofstra Law School professor and constitutional law expert, told Newsday on Monday.

A defendant is entitled to a "speedy trial" under the Sixth Amendment.

But compared with a "smash and grab" robbery at a convenience store caught on camera, a white collar criminal case takes longer due to litigation of various appeals, evidentiary rulings and other legal motions, Sample said.

SEE PHOTOSPhotos: The Trump courthouse scene

“I think we have months and months of relative quiet starting tomorrow in this case,” Sample said.

There will be "motions to dismiss the charges, motions to challenge certain witnesses," he said. "They’ll file motions to try to exclude certain evidence, and all of that will take time, and it will mostly be done on paper."

The charges against Trump filed Tuesday came after an investigation into hush money Trump allegedly paid during his 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of extramarital affairs.

Trump has denied all allegations of wrongdoing in the case.

Legal scholars have said an indictment isn't difficult to secure, and should not be interpreted as a sign of whether Trump will be found guilty.

Vincent Bonventre, an Albany Law School professor of criminal law, who studies the New York State judicial system, said with all the expected discovery requests for information about witnesses, “this could drag on for a long, long time. He could have already run for president and won."

By Scott Eidler

scott.eidler@newsday.com@ScottEidler

Scott Eidler is a deputy editor for the towns department at Newsday. Scott has worked at Newsday since 2012 and previously covered municipal government and education.