President-elect Donald Trump petitioned a New York appeals court on Tuesday to dismiss his hush money conviction because of his status as president-in-waiting.

The filing amounts to a last-minute bid to stave off Mr. Trump’s sentencing Friday for falsifying business records in Manhattan.

State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan says he won’t impose jail time on the president-elect. But Mr. Trump and his team say the case should evaporate, period, given a Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity and Mr. Trump’s election win in November.

“This doctrine of sitting-president immunity mandates the immediate dismissal, not just a stay, of any pending criminal case against President Trump, regardless of the stage of proceedings,” defense attorney Todd Blanche wrote to the state Appellate Division, First Judicial Department. “Once President Trump was reelected, the jury verdict in the underlying criminal case should have been immediately vacated and the case dismissed.”

He said Judge Merchan erred by denying this relief to Mr. Trump and “further erred by issuing an incredibly disruptive order requiring President Trump to appear for a criminal sentencing on seven days’ notice, on January 10, 2025, at the apex of the presidential transition.”

The defense team is scrambling for relief from the appeals court after Judge Merchan late Monday refused a request to stay the sentencing hearing. The judge says Mr. Trump can appear in person or virtually, but Mr. Trump sees the situation as an affront to his status and says the judge should be disbarred.

Mr. Trump’s new filing says Judge Merchan “is without authority under the law to proceed to sentencing while President Trump exercises his federal constitutional right to challenge these rulings, and the erroneous jury verdict in the underlying criminal case must be vacated and the charges against President Trump must be dismissed with prejudice, without further delay.”

At trial, prosecutors said Mr. Trump criminally concealed a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels around the 2016 campaign with an intent to violate election laws.

They said Mr. Trump paid Ms. Daniels through Michael Cohen and concealed reimbursements to the lawyer in 2017 by misidentifying checks.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers said he was busy running the country and thought he was paying Mr. Cohen for legal services, so his team logged the checks in that manner.

They also said the trial was politically motivated and designed to thwart Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.

A jury convicted Mr. Trump of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

Liberal opponents of the president-elect hoped his legal troubles would sink him. Instead, he seemed to thrive from the adversity and won the GOP primary and general election against Vice President Kamala Harris.

Special counsel Jack Smith moved to dismiss federal cases against Mr. Trump, and a Georgia racketeering case against Mr. Trump is in limbo due to a conflict of interest concerning Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.