New York’s top appeals court on Thursday denied President-elect Donald Trump’s request to halt Friday’s sentencing for his conviction last year on falsified business records. One judge of the New York Court of Appeals issued a brief order declining to grant a hearing to Trump’s legal team. No explanation was given to Trump’s attorneys. In a filing to the court this week, Trump’s attorneys had said Justice Juan Merchan and the state’s mid-level appellate court both “erroneously failed” to stop the sentencing, arguing that the Constitution requires an automatic pause as they appeal the judge’s ruling upholding the verdict….