The judge left intact the second of the three provisions on the reasoning that ’the proceedings are not concluded.’
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan terminated parts of former President Donald Trump’s gag order on June 25, adding that the rest will expire once sentencing is complete.
The judge broke the original gag order down into three categories: statements about witnesses; statements about court staff and counsel, and later extended it to include family members of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Justice Merchan, but not the judge and district attorney themselves; and statements about jurors.
“Circumstances have now changed. The trial portion of these proceedings ended when the verdict was rendered, and the jury discharged,” Judge Merchan wrote. He terminated the order as it applies to witnesses and jurors.
Jurors were told, after they delivered the verdict on May 30, that they were no longer under orders to not discuss the case, and were free to speak about it as they wished.
Judge Merchan added that it was his “strong preference” to extend the order as it applied to jurors but ruled that the appellate court decision had upheld the original gag order, which applied to the trial, and therefore the order “must be terminated.”
He added in his order that his March 7 protective order barring parties from releasing the identities of individual jurors “will remain in effect until further order of this Court.”
The judge left intact the second of the three provisions on the reasoning that “the proceedings are not concluded.”
The judge ruled court staff and counsel “must continue to perform their lawful duties free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm,” and so the order would remain “in effect until the imposition of the sentence.”
Attorneys for former President Trump had appealed the gag order in the appellate division of the mid-level New York Supreme Court, and later the New York Court of Appeals, which is the state’s top court. The gag order was upheld in full both times.
