NEW YORK — A blow to most of the accused, Donald Trump has transformed his criminal conviction in a rallying cry. His supporters wrote “I Vote for Felon” on T-shirts, hats and lawn signs.

“The real verdict will be delivered by the people on November 5,” Trump proclaimed after his conviction in New York last spring on 34 counts of falsifying business records.

Now, just a week after Trump’s resounding election victory, a Manhattan judge is set to decide whether to uphold the silence verdict or reject the because of a United States Supreme Court decision in July, it gave presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution.

Judge Juan M. Merchan said he would issue a written opinion Tuesday on Trump’s request to vacate his conviction and order a new trial or dismiss the indictment entirely.

Merchan was expected to take power in September, but he postponed it “to avoid any appearance” that he was trying to influence the election. His decision could be frozen again if Trump takes further steps to delay or end the case.

If the judge upholds the verdict, the case could go to trial on Nov. 26 — although that could change or disappear depending on appeals or other legal maneuvers.

Trump’s lawyers have been fighting for months to overturn his conviction, which involved efforts to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, whose affair allegations threatened to disrupt his 2016 campaign.

Trump denies the claim, maintains he did nothing wrong and denounced the verdict as the “rigged and shameful” result of a politically motivated “witch hunt” intended to damage his campaign.

The Supreme Court ruling grants former presidents immunity from prosecution for official acts — things they do as part of their job as president — and bars prosecutors from using evidence of official acts in an attempt to prove that purely personal conduct violated the law.

Trump was a private citizen — campaigning for the presidency, but not elected or sworn in — when his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid off Daniels in October 2016.

But Trump was president when Cohen was reimbursed, and Cohen said they discussed repayment terms in the Oval Office. According to jurors, those reimbursements were falsely recorded in Trump’s records as legal fees.

Trump’s lawyers say the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office ‘tainted’ the case with evidence — including testimony about Trump’s first term as president — that should not have been allowed .

Prosecutors argue that the high court’s decision provides “no reason to disturb the jury’s verdict.” Trump’s conviction, they said, involved unofficial acts — personal conduct from which he is not immune.

The Supreme Court did not set an official act, leaving that task to the lower courts. He also did not specify how his decision – which arose from one of Trump’s two federal criminal cases — concerns state-level cases like Trump’s hush money prosecutions.

“There are several obscure aspects in the court’s decision, but one of them that is particularly relevant in this case is the question of what constitutes an official act,” said Ilya Somin, professor of law at George Mason University. “And I think it’s extremely difficult to argue that this reward to this woman should be considered an official act, for a number of fairly obvious reasons.

Trump’s efforts to expunge the verdict have become more urgent since his election, with a sentencing date looming at the end of the month and possible penalties ranging from a fine or probation to four years in prison.

Presidents-elect don’t typically enjoy the same legal protections as presidents, but Trump and his lawyers could try to leverage his unique status as former and future commander in chief into a sort of “get out of jail free” card. .

A likely argument: Trump would not only spare himself a potential prison sentence, he would spare the nation the calamity of its leader behind bars – however remote that possibility may be.

“He will ask every court in the world to intervene if he can, including the Supreme Court, so that it can drag things out a little bit,” said David Driesen, a law professor at Syracuse University , author of the book “The specter of dictatorship: judicial authorization of presidential power.

At the same time, Trump tried again to move the case from state court to federal court, where he could also assert his immunity. His lawyers asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a judge’s September ruling denying the transfer.

If Merchan orders a new trial, it seems unlikely to happen while Trump is in office.

Trump’s lawyers argued in court papers that, given the Supreme Court’s ruling, jurors should not have been allowed to hear about topics such as his conversations with Hope Hicks, then communications director of the White House, nor another aide’s testimony about his work practices.

Prosecutors’ use of Trump’s 2018 financial disclosure report, which he was required to file as president, was also verboten, they said. A footnote noted that Trump reimbursed Cohen in 2017 for unspecified expenses from the previous year.

Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, argued that prosecutors were trying to “attribute a criminal motive” to some of Trump’s actions in office in order to “unjustly harm” him. For example, they wrote, prosecutors advanced the “dubious theory” that some of Trump’s tweets in 2018 were part of a “pressure campaign” aimed at preventing Cohen from turning on him.

The immunity decision “precludes any investigation into these motivations,” Blanche and Bove wrote.

Prosecutors countered that the ruling does not apply to the evidence in question and that, in any event, it is “only a fragment of the mountains of testimony and documentary evidence” considered by the jury. .