In District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s dream world, the case is frozen for four years, and Judge Juan Merchan hands down a prison sentence to President Trump soon after he departs the White House in 2029. Judge Merchan on Friday indefinitely delayed sentencing to allow time to brief that plan.

 Is that fantasy of a four-year freeze feasible?

Trump wants to take no chances. His lawyer, Todd Blanche — now a nominee for deputy attorney general — wrote a letter to Judge Merchan urging “immediate dismissal” of the president-elect’s 34 felony convictions. Mr. Blanche argues that “continuing with this case would be ‘uniquely destabilizing’ and threaten to ‘hamstring the whole operation of the government apparatus.’”

Mr. Bragg is urging Judge Merchan toward delay rather than dismissal. He acknowledges, “Consideration must be given to various non-dismissal options that may address any concerns raised by the pendency of a posttrial criminal proceeding during the presidency.” The district attorney’s preferred course is “deferral of all remaining criminal proceedings until after the end” of Trump’s second term.

A four-year freeze could be a difficult sell. New York’s criminal law mandates that a criminal sentence “must be pronounced without unreasonable delay.” That’s because a convicted defendant can only begin his appeal once a sentence has been handed down. While Mr. Bragg acknowledges that Trump’s looming presidency means that the state proceedings will likely be required to yield, Trump is also owed the usual due process rights accorded to any defendant. 

The Constitution’s Sixth Amendment’s grant of a “speedy trial” to the “accused” is incorporated in New York’s charter. The Supreme Court has ordained that “a defendant’s due process right to liberty [after conviction], while diminished, is still present. He retains an interest in a sentencing proceeding that is fundamentally fair.” A four-year delay — even on account of immunity — could be reckoned as unfair.

While guilt or innocence is a matter for a jury, sentencing is generally at the discretion of the judge. An explainer published by New York’s court system puts it bluntly — “the Judge decides your sentence.” While a judge “can’t sentence you to years in prison for a violation like jumping a turnstile,” the latitude is vast. Mr. Bragg could be encouraged on account of Judge Merchan’s string of rulings that have evinced hostility to Trump and sympathy to the People’s case. 

Trump has accused him of bias — based in part on the work of Judge Merchan’s adult daughter as a Democratic operative — and requested recusal. Even after Judge Merchan was chastised by oversight authorities for making a nominal donation to President Biden’s campaign, the judge has insisted he remain on the case.

Even Judge Merchan, though, could balk at sentencing Trump to prison in four years’ time, when he will be 82 years of age and the underlying offenses — the disguised payments to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — would have been transacted 12 years earlier, and all over an alleged sexual encounter that took place in 2006. Judge Merchan might no longer be on the bench, and Mr. Bragg could have moved on from the district attorney’s office.

Also a consideration is the nature of Trump’s convictions. While technically felonies, they arrived at that status via a circuitous route whereby misdemeanor violations were transformed into felonies when Mr. Bragg’s office convinced the jury and Judge Merchan that they were committed in furtherance of a then-unnamed second crime. That legal jujitsu could lessen the case for a prison sentence.

The furthest Mr. Bragg could take the charges was to a “Class E” felony classification. Those are the least serious, though they can still carry a maximum of four years behind bars. There are no mandatory minimums, though, and a sentence of probation or conditional discharge is possible. If Trump had been convicted in one of his other criminal cases, he would have been a “predicate felon” — and prison would be required for his conviction. 

Even if Judge Merchan denies Trump’s motion to dismiss and keeps the case on ice for four years, the Supreme Court could step in and reckon that even a dormant case threatens the peace of mind that is a predicate to the president’s mandate to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” That is a federal command, and the Nine could reckon that New York’s case is an infringement on federal law, which is part of the “supreme Law of the Land.”