Wow. That was a surprise. Donald Trump has been elected to serve as the nation’s 45th president, defying the outcome nearly all the experts predicted, in what The Washington Post called a “shocking ending” to a “traumatic campaign.” President-elect Trump carried North Carolina by 3.8 percentage points over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. That’s an impressive margin for a state that Republican nominee Mitt Romney carried by 2.2 percent over President Obama in 2012, and which Obama won by less than a percentage point in 2008. What impact will a Trump presidency have on the legal issues discussed in this blog? For starters, President Trump will select the justice who fills the seat on the United States Supreme Court that was vacated last spring by the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia. You may recall that President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, the Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to fill the vacancy some 237 days ago (someone apparently is counting). The Republican-controlled Senate has refused to hold a confirmation hearing for Judge Garland. Given that a Republican was just elected president and the Republicans retained control of the Senate, it appears that everyone can stop counting now as Garland has zero chance of having his nomination approved. Trump’s presidency will, of course, impact criminal justice in a myriad of other ways. He will appoint a new attorney general. Time will tell if the nation's new top prosecutor decides to further investigate Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as [...]
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