Trump Is Set to Avoid Punishment, but Sentencing Will Make Him a Felon

After months of delay, President-elect Donald J. Trump on Friday is set to become the first American president to be criminally sentenced.

He is expected to avoid jail or any other substantive punishment, but the proceeding will still carry significant symbolic importance. It will formalize his status as a felon, making him the first to carry that dubious designation into the presidency.

The sentencing, which comes 10 days before Mr. Trump’s second inauguration, stems from his conviction on charges of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his first presidential campaign.

Once the jury convicted him on all 34 felony counts in May, the former and future president fought tooth and nail to avoid the embarrassing spectacle of a sentencing. This month, his lawyers filed a series of requests in New York State Court to halt the proceeding, all of which failed, leading him to seek an emergency reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court.

But the high court on Thursday denied Mr. Trump’s request for a stay, a surprising show of independence from a court that has appeared sympathetic to Mr. Trump in other recent cases.

The court’s rejection was a victory for the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, for whom the prosecution was a career-defining endeavor and who fought his effort to run out the clock on the sentencing.

It also validated a recent decision by the trial judge overseeing the case, Juan M. Merchan, to push ahead with the sentencing just days before the inauguration despite Mr. Trump’s protestations. Justice Merchan signaled he would spare the president-elect any punishment and would allow him to appear virtually rather than in the courtroom.

Here’s what to know about Mr. Trump’s sentencing:

• After a seven-week trial last spring, a jury of 12 New Yorkers convicted Mr. Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. The case arose from a 2016 hush-money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who was selling her story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump. Had she gone public, Ms. Daniels might have triggered a scandal in the final days of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. Mr. Trump, the jury concluded, reimbursed his fixer, Michael D. Cohen, for the hush money and then directed that records be falsified to keep the payment under wraps.

• The jury’s verdict made Mr. Trump the first former president to be branded a felon. But in the eyes of the law, his felon status will not be cemented until Justice Merchan imposes the sentence.

• Mr. Trump had faced up to four years in prison, but his election victory made incarceration a practical and constitutional impossibility. Instead, Justice Merchan has suggested he will impose a so-called unconditional discharge of Mr. Trump’s sentence, a rare and lenient alternative to prison time or probation. While a conditional discharge would have required Mr. Trump to meet certain requirements, like maintaining employment or paying restitution, an unconditional discharge comes with no strings attached.

• Mr. Trump has been lashing out at Justice Merchan and Mr. Bragg since the case was brought, claiming that the men, both Democrats, are carrying out a political witch hunt against him. He also filed a civil action against Justice Merchan in a New York appeals court, challenging the judge’s decision to uphold the conviction.