New York prosecutors on Thursday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to deny President-elect Donald J. Trump’s last-ditch effort to halt his criminal sentencing, in a prelude to a much-anticipated ruling that will determine whether he enters the White House as a felon.

In a filing a day before the scheduled sentencing, prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office called Mr. Trump’s emergency application to the Supreme Court premature, saying that he had not yet exhausted his appeals in state court. They noted that the judge overseeing the case plans to spare Mr. Trump jail time, which they argued undermined any need for a stay.

The prosecutors, who had secured Mr. Trump’s conviction last year on charges that he falsified records to cover up a sex scandal that endangered his 2016 presidential campaign, implored the Supreme Court to let Mr. Trump’s sentencing proceed.

“There is a compelling public interest in proceeding to sentencing,” they wrote, and added that “the sanctity of a jury verdict and the deference that must be accorded to it are bedrock principles in our Nation’s jurisprudence.”

The district attorney’s office has so far prevailed in New York’s appellate courts, but Mr. Trump’s fate now rests in the hands of a friendlier audience: a Supreme Court with a 6-to-3 conservative majority that includes three justices Mr. Trump appointed. Five are needed to grant a stay.

Their decision, coming little more than a week before the inauguration, will test the influence Mr. Trump wields over a court that has previously appeared sympathetic to his legal troubles.

In July, the court granted former presidents broad immunity for official acts, stymying a federal criminal case against Mr. Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election. (After Mr. Trump won the 2024 election, prosecutors shut down that case.)

The revelation that Mr. Trump spoke this week by phone with one of the conservative justices, Samuel A. Alito Jr., has fueled concerns that he has undue sway over the court.

Justice Alito said he was delivering a job reference for a former law clerk whom Mr. Trump was considering for a government position. But the disclosure alarmed ethics groups and raised questions about why a president-elect would personally handle such a routine reference check.

It is unclear whether Justice Alito will recuse himself from the decision, which the court could issue promptly.

Mr. Trump’s sentencing is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. Friday in the same Lower Manhattan courtroom where his trial took place last spring, when the jury convicted him on all 34 felony counts.

If the Supreme Court rescues Mr. Trump on Thursday, returning him to the White House on Jan. 20 without the finality of being sentenced, it will confirm to many Americans that he is above the law. Almost any other defendant would have been sentenced by now.

“A sentencing hearing more than seven months after a guilty verdict is aberrational in New York criminal prosecutions for its delay, not its haste,” the prosecutors wrote.

The prosecutors also noted that Mr. Trump would most likely avoid any punishment at sentencing. The trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, has signaled he plans to show Mr. Trump leniency, reflecting the practical impossibility of incarcerating a president.

Still, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the sentencing could impinge on his presidential duties. It would formalize Mr. Trump’s conviction, cementing his status as the first felon to occupy the Oval Office.

That status, Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote in the filing to the Supreme Court, would raise “the specter of other possible restrictions on liberty, such as travel, reporting requirements, registration, probationary requirements and others.”

The court’s immunity ruling also underpinned Mr. Trump’s request to halt his sentencing. In the application, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that he was entitled to full immunity from prosecution — as well as sentencing — because he won the election.

“This court should enter an immediate stay of further proceedings in the New York trial court,” the application said, “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the presidency and the operations of the federal government.”

Mr. Trump’s application was filed by two of his picks for top jobs in the Justice Department: Todd Blanche, Mr. Trump’s choice for deputy attorney general, and D. John Sauer, his selection for solicitor general.

“Forcing President Trump to prepare for a criminal sentencing in a felony case while he is preparing to lead the free world as president of the United States in less than two weeks imposes an intolerable, unconstitutional burden on him that undermines these vital national interests,” they wrote.

Whether that argument will prevail is uncertain. Some legal experts have doubted the merits of Mr. Trump’s application, and lower courts have greeted his arguments with skepticism.

Earlier Thursday, a judge on the New York Court of Appeals in Albany, the state’s highest court, declined to grant a separate request from Mr. Trump to freeze the sentencing.

Prosecutors noted that Mr. Trump had yet to have a full appellate panel rule on the matter, and that he had not mounted a formal appeal of his conviction. Consequently, they argued, the Supreme Court “lacks jurisdiction over this non-final state criminal proceeding.”

Also this week, a judge on the First Department of New York’s Appellate Divison in Manhattan rejected the same request to halt the sentencing.

That judge, Ellen Gesmer, grilled Mr. Trump’s lawyer at a hearing about whether he had found “any support for a notion that presidential immunity extends to president-elects?”

With no example to offer, Mr. Blanche conceded, “There has never been a case like this before.”

In their filing Thursday, prosecutors echoed Justice Gesmer’s concerns, noting that “This extraordinary immunity claim is unsupported by any decision from any court.”

They also argued that Mr. Trump’s claims of presidential immunity fell short because their case concerned a personal crisis that predated his first presidential term. The evidence, they said, centered on “unofficial conduct having no connection to any presidential function.”

The state’s case centered on a sex scandal involving the porn star Stormy Daniels, who threatened to go public about an encounter with Mr. Trump, a salacious story that could have derailed his 2016 campaign.

To bury the story, Mr. Trump’s fixer, Michael D. Cohen, negotiated a $130,000 hush-money deal with Ms. Daniels.

Mr. Trump eventually repaid him. But Mr. Cohen, who was the star witness during the trial, said that Mr. Trump orchestrated a scheme to falsify records and hide the true purpose of the reimbursement.

Although Mr. Trump initially faced sentencing in July, his lawyers buried Justice Merchan in a flurry of filings that prompted one delay after another. Last week, Justice Merchan put a stop to the delays and scheduled the sentencing for Friday.

Mr. Trump faced four years in prison, but his election victory ensured that time behind bars was not a viable option. Instead, Justice Merchan indicated that he would impose a so-called unconditional discharge, a rare and lenient alternative to jail or probation.

“The trial court has taken extraordinary steps to minimize any burdens on defendant,” the prosecutors wrote Thursday.

Carole Wilbourn, a self-described cat therapist, who was known for her skill in decoding the emotional life of cats, as confounding as that would seem to be, died on Dec. 23 at her home in Manhattan. She was 84.

Her death was confirmed by her sister Gail Mutrux.

Ms. Wilbourn’s patients shredded sofas, toilet paper and romantic partners. They soiled rugs and beds. They galloped over their sleeping humans in the wee hours. They hissed at babies, dogs and other cats. They chewed electrical wires. They sulked in closets, and went on hunger strikes.

They suffered from childhood trauma, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, jealousy and just plain rage. And Ms. Wilbourn, who was self-taught — in college she had studied (human) psychology and majored in education — seemed particularly attuned to the inner workings of their furry minds. A minor Manhattan celebrity, she was often called the kitty Freud, or the mother of cat psychiatry.

Cats hate change, she often noted. Even a new slipcover on the sofa can undo them. Cats are selfish. Unlike dogs, who strive to please their master, a cat strives to please itself. To mangle a cliché, happy cat, happy (human) life.

“A cat behaves badly when it’s trying to communicate,” she told The Los Angeles Daily News in 1990. “It’s sending an SOS. It’s saying, ‘Please help me.’”

Ms. Wilbourn developed her specialty over a half-century after founding The Cat Practice, billed as Manhattan’s first cats-only hospital, in 1973 with Paul Rowan, a veterinarian. She said she was the first feline therapist in the country, a claim that is not known to have been disputed.

She was the author of six books, including “Cats on the Couch” (first published in 1982), which offered case studies to help cat lovers better understand their furry friends. She treated patients as far away as Australia and Turkey (by phone), and made house calls as far away as Maui.

“Cats have emotions,” she said. “They get happy and sad and frustrated, and, since I understand emotions in people, I understand them in cats.”

She estimated that she had treated some 13,000 cats, and claimed a success rate of 75 to 80 percent. Take Snoopy, who didn’t like to be held and played rough when he was, and ran around in circles if he was over-excited. Sobriety, a 3-year-old tabby, scratched her own skin raw. Minina bit all visitors, and had to be locked away during dinner parties. Ms. Wilbourn’s diagnosis? Single cat syndrome. The treatment? Another cat, preferably a kitten; lots of attention, but not to the kitten; and, in Sobriety’s case, Valium.

She once treated a cat with Reiki energy healing after it had accidentally been run through the dryer.

Ms. Wilbourn’s go-to prescriptions also included New Age and classical music, recordings of whale songs and an abundance of treats, like catnip (a natural antidepressant, she pointed out). She also suggested canny behavior modifications by the humans, like having a new romantic partner feed the cat. She often recommended, in the days of landlines and answering machines, that humans call their pets and leave them cheerful messages. Her services did not come cheap. House-visits in Manhattan hovered at $400.

“If I lived anywhere besides a big city like New York,” she told The New York Times in 2004, “I’d be on food stamps.”

Carole Cecile Engel was born on March 19, 1940, in the Flushing section of Queens, one of four children of Harriet (Greenwald) and Gustave Engel, a taxi driver. There were no cats in their Queens apartment, but the family did have a canary named Petey. Carole graduated from Bayside High School and attended Albany State University’s School of Education before transferring to New York University, where she studied psychology and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business education in 1964.

Her first cat was a part-Siamese named Oliver, whom she adopted through an ad in The Village Voice. She was working as a substitute teacher and a Playboy bunny before opening The Cat Practice with Dr. Rowan, whom she later married.

“She was very attuned to the animals, to their emotional states,” Dr. Rowan said in an interview. “It was very unusual for the time.” As a result, their business flourished.

An earlier marriage to David Wilbourn, a photographer, ended in divorce, as did her marriage to Dr. Rowan. In addition to Ms. Mutrux, her sister, she is survived by Orion 2, a Siamese.

Ms. Wilbourn was a dog lover too, and on occasion treated canines, though she never had a dog herself. But she had definite views about anti-cat people. In her experience, she said, some of those who claimed they were allergic to cats often just didn’t like them.

“A cat is a free spirit and will not be subservient,” she wrote in “The Inner Cat” (1978). “People who derive their gratification from giving commands that others must obey can be threatened by a cat. It’s hard to assert your sense of power over a cat.”

Ports on the East and Gulf Coasts could close next week if dockworkers and employers cannot overcome their big differences over the use of automated machines to move cargo.

The International Longshoremen’s Association, the union that represents dockworkers, and the United States Maritime Alliance, the employers’ negotiating group, on Tuesday resumed in-person talks aimed at forging a new labor contract.

After a short strike in October, the union and the alliance agreed on a 62 percent raise over six years for the longshoremen — and said they would try to work out other parts of the contract, including provisions governing automated technology, before Jan. 15.

If they don’t have a deal by that date, ports that account for three-fifths of U.S. container shipments could shut, harming businesses that rely on imports and exports and providing an early test for the new Trump administration.

“If there’s a strike, it will have a significant impact on the U.S. economy and the supply chain,” said Dennis Monts, chief operating officer of PayCargo, a freight payments company.

The union is resisting automation because it fears the loss of jobs at the ports. President-elect Donald J. Trump lent his support to the union’s position last month. “I’ve studied automation, and know just about everything there is to know about it,” he said on his website Truth Social. “The amount of money saved is nowhere near the distress, hurt, and harm it causes for American Workers, in this case, our Longshoremen.”

But figures close to Mr. Trump, like Vivek Ramaswamy, who the president-elect says will co-head an agency that will advise his administration on slimming down the government, have been critical of the union. In October, Republicans in Congress called on President Biden to use the Taft-Hartley Act to force striking longshoremen back to work.

And while the maritime alliance has agreed to a hefty raise, it may not be as ready to compromise on technology. Employers say that the technology is needed to make the ports more efficient and that they want the new contract to give them more leeway to introduce the sort of machinery that the union opposes.

To prepare for the potential closing of East and Gulf Coast ports, businesses have accelerated some imports, delayed others and diverted some to West Coast ports, said Jess Dankert, vice president for supply chain at the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents many businesses that import goods.

“Contingency plans are pretty well developed,” she said, but added that a strike of more than a week would have significant ripple effects that could take a while to disentangle.

The International Longshoremen’s Association declined to comment.

The cost of shipping a container has risen over 60 percent on average in the past year, in large part because attacks on shipping in the Red Sea have forced ocean carriers to travel a longer, more expensive route and use more vessels. And if the East and Gulf Coast ports close, some carriers recently said, they will add surcharges to shipping rates for containers destined for the ports.

In earlier negotiations, the union secured a deal that would increase wages to $63 an hour, from $39, by the end of a new six-year contract. With shift work and overtime, the pay of many longshoremen at some East Coast ports could rise to well over $200,000 a year. (At the Port of New York and New Jersey, nearly 60 percent of the longshoremen made $100,000 to $200,000 in the 12 months through June 2020, the latest figures available, according to data from an agency that helped oversee the port.)

But to get those raises, the union will have to reach a deal on the rest of the contract, including new provisions on automation.

The core of the technology dispute concerns “semi-automated” port machinery that does not always require the involvement of humans. At the Port of Virginia, humans operate cranes that load containers onto trucks, but the cranes can also arrange huge stacks of containers on their own.

The last labor contract allowed for the introduction of semi-automated technology when both parties agreed to work-force protections and staffing levels. But in recent months, leaders of the International Longshoremen’s Association criticized port operators’ use of semi-automated technology, contending that it will lead to job losses.

“Now, employers are coming for the last remaining jobs under the shiny banner of semi-automation,” Dennis A. Daggett, the union’s executive vice president, wrote in a message to members last month.

The employers want the new contract to let them introduce more technology. In a statement to The New York Times last month, the maritime alliance said it was committed to keeping the job protections in place, but added, “Our focus now is how to also strengthen the ability to implement equipment that will improve safety, and increase efficiency, productivity and capacity.”

Even with automation, hiring of longshoremen has gone up at the Port of Virginia, according to union records. An increase in the number of containers the port handles is largely behind the increase in hiring.

“The Port of Virginia is thriving with automation,” said Ram Ganeshan, professor of operations and supply chain at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. “They’re not mutually exclusive.”

Some labor experts said there was a model for compromise: The union could agree to more automation, and the employers would offer solid job guarantees.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents dockworkers on the West Coast, agreed to a contract over a decade ago that “recognized that the introduction of new technologies, including fully mechanized and robotic-operated marine terminals, necessarily displaces traditional longshore work and workers.” The union got guarantees that its members would maintain and repair the machinery at the terminals.

Harry Katz, a professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said a deal on the East and Gulf Coasts was possible in part because the employers were profitable enough to offer job guarantees. “I do expect a compromise,” he said.