05/30/2024
Juan Merchan
Justice of the New York Supreme Court
Acting
Assumed office
2009
Appointed by Ann Pfau
Personal details
Born Juan Manuel Merchan
1962 or 1963 (age 61–62)
Bogotá, Colombia
Education Baruch College (BBA)
Hofstra University (JD)
Juan Manuel Merchan[1] (born 1962/1963)[2] is a Colombian-American judge and former prosecutor. He is an acting justice of the New York State Supreme Court in New York County (Manhattan). He presided over the 2024 criminal trial of former US president Donald Trump, in which Trump was convicted. Merchan is the first judge in history to preside over the criminal indictment and conviction of a sitting or former US President, and the first judge to hold a President in criminal contempt of court.
Early life and education
Merchan was born in Bogotá, Colombia.[3] He immigrated to New York City when he was six years old, growing up in Jackson Heights, Queens, as the youngest of six children. His father had been a military officer in Colombia.[4] Merchan studied business at Baruch College in Manhattan, graduating in 1990, and earned his Juris Doctor from Hofstra University School of Law on Long Island in 1994.[2] He was the first member of his family to go to college.[5]