Former President Donald Trump faces steep odds on his likely years-long battle to appeal last week's criminal conviction, legal experts told Salon.

Trump on Sunday complained about his upcoming sentencing date, which is scheduled days before the Republican National Convention, writing on Truth Social that the "Supreme Court MUST DECIDE."

"There's an uphill battle, both in the state courts and the U.S. Supreme Court," Manoj Mate, a professor of law at DePaul University College of Law who focuses on constitutional law, told Salon.

The Manhattan jury convicted Trump last week of all 34 felony counts of falsification of business records. Prosecutors alleged that Trump disguised $130,000 in hush money as a legal expense as part of a scheme to keep information about alleged extramarital sex from voters and unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election.

Salon has spoken to numerous legal experts about Trump's potential pathway to the Supreme Court — which he could conceivably reach after exhausting his appeal options in the state of New York.

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At the state level, Mate said Trump could argue that adult film star Stormy Daniels' testimony was prejudicial or that the judge made some "clear error" in the jury instructions.

"They have to establish that there was some clear error on the part of the judge on some decisions in terms of allowing the D.A. to prosecute the case in this certain way, to allow certain testimony, including the Daniels........

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