Trump just pleaded not guilty to the 37-count indictment against him. Here's what happens next.

• Trump pleaded not guilty to a 37-count indictment over mishandling classified documents.
• The sensitive nature of the evidence will make the pretrial schedule complicated.

In Miami federal court Tuesday, former President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to the Justice Department's 37-count indictment against him.

The clock is ticking. Special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor overseeing the case, promised he'd seek a "speedy trial" to bring Trump to justice. Trump remains, by a large margin, the front-runner to cinch the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024.

What happens next is largely up to US District Judge Aileen Cannon, who will oversee the proceedings going forward.

Cannon made waves last year by slowing down the Justice Department's investigation into Trump by adding an additional layer of review on much of the material the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago last summer.

Prosecutors allege that Trump took sensitive government documents from the White House when he left office, stashed them in his Florida estate, refused to hand them back to federal authorities when asked, and sought to mislead law enforcement about their whereabouts.

Here's what happens next:

Trump will not go to jail — and probably won't have to go to court again for a while

Trump is free to continue holding rallies and running for the White House.

He won't be kept in jail ahead of trial or have a bond imposed upon him.

When judges decide bail conditions for criminal defendants, the big factors are whether they're a physical danger to those around them and whether they may flee.

Trump is trying to become president of the country, so he's unlikely to flee. And while people may accuse him of inciting a deadly insurrection on January 6, 2021, he wasn't accused of physical violence in the indictment.

Besides, Trump is surrounded by US Secret Service agents around the clock.

Judge Cannon will set the schedule

In the coming weeks, prosecutors will start giving Trump's lawyers all the evidence they may bring to trial. Trump's legal team can use that information — called discovery material — to defend him in front of a jury.

The volume and nature of the discovery material will help Cannon decide how to schedule upcoming hearings.

A major factor here is that Trump is accused of taking classified government documents. That means the discovery disclosures will be more fraught, as prosecutors will want to make sure that certain documents remain locked down even as Trump's lawyers review them. The Classified Information Processing Act, or CIPA, governs the discovery process for classified documents and can slow things down.

Once the parties have a good grasp of the material, Cannon will set a schedule for a motion to dismiss. Trump's lawyers will have the opportunity to argue that the counts against him should be tossed before they even see a jury. The Justice Department will argue why the charges should stick.

Cannon will likely hold oral arguments after a couple of rounds of filings and then decide whether to dismiss some or all of the charges.

As the case proceeds to trial, each side will also likely have a number of filings arguing over what evidence jurors will be allowed to see.

Will a trial be held before the election?

It's unprecedented for the Justice Department to file criminal charges against a former president, much less someone running for president again.

Given the sensitive nature of the evidence, Cannon may struggle to hold a trial before the 2024 election.

A trial would likely take place during the thick of the race. Trump is scheduled to sit for trial in March 2024 in the Manhattan district attorney's separate criminal case against him connected to hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. The Mar-a-Lago records case will likely be held after that.

If Cannon fails to hold a trial before the election, and Trump wins in 2024, he may try to pardon himself — a wholly untested move — as well as purge the Justice Department of anyone who prosecuted him.

Trump may not need to show up in court again until a trial

If the case does indeed go to trial, Trump will likely have to show up.

Defendants have a constitutional right to face their accusers at trial and are generally required to show up in court for criminal cases. Judge Juan Merchan, the New York state judge overseeing Trump's other case, has made clear he expects Trump to appear in person.

Judges generally want defendants to show up for big motion hearings before a trial as well, but given the extraordinary security arrangements required for Trump's appearance, there's a chance Cannon will be laxer on that front.

In civil cases, defendants can skip the whole thing. That's what happened in E. Jean Carroll's trial against Trump earlier this year. Trump didn't show up at all, and jurors just saw edited deposition-testimony footage of him.

In that case, a jury in Manhattan federal court found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and said he owed her $5 million in damages. Trump is appealing the case.