Author and former Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax on Monday that it is not likely former President Donald Trump will see any of the four criminal cases against him go to trial in early 2024 as the prosecutors want.
"These are very complicated cases [so] that there must be the opportunity to prepare, and the trials probably will occur in a year or maybe a little less than a year, but certainly not in four months or six months," Dershowitz said on "Newsline."
"There's no reason not to be a mug shot. No reason for there not to be fingerprinting. That's routine. If it's done in other cases should be done in this case. What is not routine is that he's running for President of the United States."
Georgia's Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has given Trump and 18 other named defendants until noon on Friday to surrender to the county jail there on felony charges, including racketeering relating to trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state.
Willis is asking for the trial in that case to begin in March, the day before Super Tuesday when GOP voters in 14 states will cast ballots in the GOP 2024 primary.
In a separate federal indictment in Washington, D.C., Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith is asking for that trial, relating to Trump's role in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, to begin on Jan. 2.
Trump pleaded not guilty in that case, in another federal criminal case brought by Smith in Florida relating to Trump's handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, and in a separate New York State felony case brought in April by Manhattan District attorney Alvin Bragg, who's claiming Trump falsified business documents there to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Friday will mark the former president's fourth arrest on felony charges, a first in American history.
Dershowitz said the ongoing negotiations for his surrender and eventual arraignment in Georgia are "typical" for criminal defendants.
"This is very typical when a person is surrendering," he said. "Usually, the negotiations about the terms of the surrender, about whether there will be a mug shot, whether there'll be a perp walk, whether you could agree on bail conditions, all of it is relatively routine."
Dershowitz said the unique part will be the desire for the courtroom activity to be televised, which should happen for the American people.
"It will probably be on television. I'm not sure President Trump wants it to be on television. I'm not sure the government wants to be on television. I'm not sure the judge wants to be on television. But the American public has the right to see this trial," he said.
"It's going to be one of the most important trials in modern American history, and it should not be hidden behind closed doors. Every one of us should be able to see it and make our judgments based on real-time observations rather than reports by CNN, MSNBC, [or] in The New York Times, which obviously will skew the reports very much against Donald Trump."
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