Alternate headline: Help us, Obi-Wan Sotomayor, you’re our only hope.
Two days ago, I wrote about the absurd and vindictive penalties in Judge Arthur Engoron’s judgment against Donald Trump and its prima facie violation of the Eighth Amendment. It also unjustly blocks Trump from the normal appeals process unless he wants to destroy his business to pay for that right. New York state law incentives absurdly large awards from judges who prefer not to have higher courts reviewing their work, and a $455 million judgment for what the judge himself called “venial” sins and admittedly did no injury to anyone is such an exercise of naked power that it cannot be explained any other way.
However, as a couple of my correspondents explained shortly afterward, Trump can’t do as I suggested, which is to file a lawsuit in federal district court over the Eighth Amendment violation. The only two…
