New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has rejected an attempt by President-Elect Donald Trump to dismiss his business records case and ordered sentencing for Jan. 10.

“This Court finds that neither the vacatur of the jury’s verdicts nor dismissal of the indictment are required by the Presidential immunity doctrine, the Presidential Transition Act or the Supremacy Clause,” Merchan said on Jan. 3.

Merchan said in his order that he wasn’t inclined to impose a prison term on the president-elect.

“While this Court as a matter of law must not make any determination on sentencing prior to giving the parties and Defendant an opportunity to be heard, it seems proper at this juncture to make known the Court’s inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration, a sentence authorized by the conviction but one the People concede they no longer view as a practicable recommendation,” he said.

In May, a jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts, raising the prospect that he could face prison. Experts previously told The Epoch Times that the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution would preclude Trump from serving time.

Merchan’s order came just weeks before the president’s scheduled inauguration on Jan. 20 and touched on questions surrounding the protections afforded to president-elects. He said that Trump had presented a novel theory of presidential immunity for president-elects and that current precedent didn’t require the case’s dismissal.

He added, however, that to “assuage the Defendant’s concerns regarding the mental and physical demands during this transition period … this Court will permit Defendant to exercise his right to appear virtually for this proceeding, if he so chooses.”

His order came after a December opinion rejecting Trump’s various immunity-related objections to the evidence used during trial.

He said that Trump waited too long or failed to preserve objections to evidence and that information related to both preserved and unpreserved arguments did not receive protection under the doctrine of presidential immunity.

“This Court … finds that the evidence related to the preserved claims relate entirely to unofficial conduct and thus, receive no immunity protections,” Merchan said.

“As to the claims that were unpreserved, this Court finds in the alternative, that when considered on the merits, they too are denied because they relate entirely to unofficial conduct entitled to no immunity protections.”

In his Jan. 3 order, Merchan said dismissing the indictment and setting aside the verdict would not serve the rule of law. “On the contrary, such a decision would undermine the Rule of Law in immeasurable ways,” he said.

He also rejected the idea that Trump’s character should serve as a basis for rejecting the jury verdict, and accused Trump of disdaining the judicial branch.

“Defendant’s disdain for the Third Branch of government, whether state or federal, in New York or elsewhere, is a matter of public record,” he said.