New York State Judge Juan Merchan sentences U.S. President-elect Donald Trump as he appears remotely for a sentencing hearing in the criminal case in which he was convicted in 2024 on charges involving hush money paid to a porn star, at New York Criminal Court in Manhattan in New York City, U.S., January 10, 2025, in this courtroom sketch. REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Thursday said Donald Trump deserves another chance to show his New York state hush money criminal case belonged in federal court, providing a fresh opportunity for the U.S. president to try to erase his conviction.

Trump has argued that presidents are immune from prosecution over their official acts.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said a federal district judge should have more closely reviewed whether a 2024 Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity meant some evidence at Trump's criminal trial should have been excluded.

A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty in May 2024 on 34 charges of falsifying business records.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Trump of trying to influence the 2016 presidential election by covering up $130,000 of hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a sexual encounter with Trump.

Prosecutors said the payments amounted to an excessive, undisclosed contribution to Trump's campaign.

Trump denied Daniels' claim, and defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the election.

The judge who oversaw the trial upheld the conviction but spared Trump jail and a fine, an unusually lenient sentence he said would help ensure finality.

Trump was sentenced shortly before his January 20 inauguration for a second White House term.

TRUMP ASSERTS PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY

In seeking to move the case to federal court, Trump said the Supreme Court's finding that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution over official acts shielded him from prosecution because jurors heard evidence from his first White House term.

This included when he met with White House communications director Hope Hicks in the Oval Office in 2018, soon after news about the hush money payment became public, to discuss what he should tell the press.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan rejected Trump's bid to move the case in September 2024, saying the case belonged in state court because it addressed Trump's private behavior.

Trump's lawyer Jeffrey Wall told the 2nd Circuit in June that the criminal case fundamentally concerned federal campaign finance law, and prosecutors' emphasis on Hicks' testimony showed that Trump's official acts were central to their case.

Steven Wu, a lawyer for Bragg's office, countered that Trump's White House discussions about "unofficial behavior" did not "transform those private conversations about private behavior into evidence of official acts."

(Reporting by Luc Cohen Jonathan Stempel in New York)