Paul Manafort will not face a trial in New York State for the crimes he was convicted of on a federal level because the state’s double jeopardy law prohibits it, a judge ruled, reports the New York Times.  Manafort received a pardon from Trump in December 2020, just as Trump was leaving office.

However, the ruling may not apply to others who received pardons from Trump due to the fact that the state passed a law after Manafort’s August 2018 conviction that allowed the state to bring charges specific to crimes in the state.  The law was passed in October 2019, applying to any defendants in federal trials after its signature by Governor Andrew Cuomo; it cannot be retroactively applied to cases before then.

The new law allowing state prosecutions would allow the state attorney general to charge anyone who was pardoned by Trump to be charged in New York State court if they were charged by the state after October 2019 regardless of the disposition of their federal case.

The judge’s ruling likely will not impact ongoing New York state investigations into other members of the Trump cabal like Steve Bannon, who received a pardon for federal offenses but had not yet been tried by a federal court at the time of his pardon.  Because his case was left open, he could still face state charges.

“It really underscored why we had to take legislative action that we did so that states can pursue their own path even if there is a federal pardon,” State Senator Todd Kaminsky, a Democrat and former federal prosecutor who sponsored the bill, said.