But a federal judge in Manhattan ruled Thursday that prosecutors could seek capital punishment despite the president’s comments.
Defense lawyers had argued the president’s tweet and other statements he made on Twitter had put political pressure on the attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, to seek a death sentence. The lawyers pointed to public reports that Trump was considering firing the attorney general for not following his wishes, and said Sessions would not be able to make an impartial decision.
In his ruling, Judge Vernon S. Broderick wrote that Trump’s statements advocating for the death penalty “were perhaps ill-advised given the pendency of this case.” Still, the judge said the argument that Sessions was improperly motivated to seek execution was “pure speculation made without a scintilla of direct factual support.”
The judge said that without more evidence he could not interfere with “the attorney general’s presumptive authority to make charging decisions.”
In September, Sessions went ahead and directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the defendant, Sayfullo Saipov, 31, if he is convicted at trial, even though Broderick had not yet ruled on the motion concerning the president’s tweets. Six weeks later, Trump fired Sessions.
Saipov is accused of driving the truck down a crowded bike path along the Hudson River, and, after smashing into a school bus, jumping out and running down the highway, shouting “God is great” in Arabic. He was taken into custody after being shot by a police officer.
He has pleaded not guilty to eight capital counts of murder and other charges, and is scheduled for trial in October.
Broderick wrote that Saipov had “offered no evidence that the president’s remarks impacted the attorney general’s decision-making process in any way.”
To the contrary, the judge said, Sessions had “categorically renounced other provocative remarks made by the president” and had vowed that the Justice Department would “not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”
Federal prosecutors and Saipov’s federal public defenders declined to comment on the ruling.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.