Posted on 07/05/2024 9:45:43 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The Supreme Court ended its term divided into partisan blocs, with the Republican appointees ruling in favor of former President Trump’s claim of immunity while the three Democratic appointees voiced a bitter dissent.
It’s exactly the result many critics of the court might have expected, with politics driving the law. It’s also what Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has tried hard to avoid — at least most of the time.
For much of this year, Roberts and the justices succeeded in defusing partisan splits with narrow or procedural rulings.
By a 9-0 vote, they threw out a Texas lawsuit seeking to block millions of American women from obtaining abortion pills. They denied gun rights to people who are under a domestic violence restraining order in a 8-1 decision.
But the chief justice did not seek to bridge the partisan divide in the case of Trump vs. United States. He passed up the chance for a narrow consensus ruling offered by Justice Amy Coney Barrett that could have won over the court’s liberals.
A former Notre Dame law professor, Barrett saw no need for a broad ruling on presidential immunity in Trump’s case.
“Properly conceived, the president’s constitutional protection from prosecution is narrow,” she wrote in a concurring opinion. “The Constitution does not insulate presidents from criminal liability for official acts.”
Yes, the president cannot be prosecuted for the exercise of his “core” constitutional powers, she said, agreeing with the conservative majority on that point.
But she said the indictment before the court focused on Trump’s effort to overturn his election defeat by, for example, encouraging Republican state legislators to create false slates of electors claiming that Trump, not Biden, won in their state.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I’m glad for the outcome that we got and clearly Roberts is largely to thank for that. His outlining of the boundaries of a President’s official acts sets a high bar for prosecutors to meet.
But I think ACB makes a very important point. Let’s stick with the current President who everyone knows is mentally “off” but still has full power of his office. Suppose he woke up some morning and decided to use his power to execute a foreign leader and issued the order to, say, shoot down their plane with a missile.
Would you want him to be prosecuted for this clearly “official act”? It’s a slippery slope to be sure, but there are many example that argue both ways, and only time will tell if and when we might come to regret this decision.
Some physians brought this suit, and the SC rightly held that they had no injury and so lacked standing to sue.
[Would you want him to be prosecuted for this clearly “official act”? ]
That’s what impeachment/convictionis for. If the Dems still don’t want to convict, they suffer at the ballot box later. At least that’s how it is supposed to work.
The problem that ACB didn’t fix and Roberts pretty much did is the lawfare against the President. Basically they cannot use anything within the outer reach of his official duties as evidence of another crime. To errect not too absurd an issue, you could use the number of drinks the President has at an state function, after which he rides in the presidential limo back to the WH which he is clearly in command of as president, to accuse him in a DC criminal complaint of statory drunk driving and seek to imprison him.
ACB is turning out to be a light weight for sure
She is Trojan Horse.
A wasted pick.
Makes me want to puke.
So now we can throw out all of the environmental lawsuits done on behalf of the Earth and let it hire its own lawyers !
We need a 50 year moratorium on Ivy League Federal Judges and Justices.
"The punishment, which may be the consequence of conviction upon impeachment, is not to terminate the chastisement of the offender. After having been sentenced to a perpetual ostracism from the esteem and confidence, and honors and emoluments of his country; he will still be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.
From what I can tell, no justice ruled and no party to the case (including Trump) argued that presidents can't be prosecuted after impeachment, even for official acts that turn out to be crimes. The actual meaning and significance of this decision is being widely misrepresented.
They did not throw it out the sent it back to a lower court. Depending on the lower court ruling, this could end up back at SCOTUS in a year or so. Especially if an Emergency room physician gets fired, because they refuses to perform an abortion because the mother’s life is not in danger.
In order to avoid ‘tit-for-tat’ prosecutions of ex-presidents spanning into the next century and beyond, the Supreme’s had no choice but to do what they did. I agree with many on here who say much of this is still to be worked out as cases present themselves. Still, the basic decision has been made.
Trump has done some shaky things to be sure, but has there ever been a President who didn’t do some shaky things? Whats frustrating to me, by comparison, Trump went to trial for jay-walking while Obama, had they gone after him, could have been sent to trial for murder. Out of decorum and courtesy he was given a pass.
Here’s the dirty little secret: Presidents are in fact above the law. They have to do things, make decisions, and finagle political problems using solutions outside of the rules. No one with a brain denies that.
As a long held tradition and courtesy, both parties have let the other parties ‘sh-t’ go. We’ve all been frustrated by that (especially when Hillary got busted with a server in her closet or blames Benghazi and the internet), but down deep we’ve understood that politicians have to politic.
The Dems have no one to blame for themselves for making this ‘dirty little secret’ official en forcible policy, especially when what they went after Trump for was more politics than an actual serious legal matter.
In the end, impeachment was, is, and will forever be the way to hold a president accountable. That’s our system. It works. And, Supreme’s upheld it....although I am sure they wish they weren’t put into that position by the Dems.
Point taken but Barrett graduated rom Notre Dame Law School.
Good point and reference to the Federalist papers, as the founders clearly were concerned about this very issue (the president becoming a defacto king). The biggest difference today is that ostracism isn’t much of a deterrent these days (just look at Bill Clinton).
But I get that impeachment is the first remedy. It’s a bit like the immunity power companies have against damages resulting from power outages. It’s unfortunate when people suffer losses but if everyone were allowed to sue when their freezers thawed, the power companies would be bankrupt. To charge a President with a crime, it must be a high bar and based on conditions and knowledge at the time. No one would want GWB charged with war crimes because he acted on the basis of intelligence that later appeared to be invalid.
Trump always talk about the “Three” great USSC justices he appointed. And I cringe every time. Trump should just come right out and say that he totally screwed up with ACB. Mr K is not a whole lot better.
Oh look, Sandra Day O’Connor found a way to reincarnate herself.
ACB will be full on squishy moderate, swing vote in the next term.
You might want to also direct some of your justifiable ire at the groups and senators that provided Trump with the list to pick from of those who could get confirmed by the senate.
Roberts’ legacy is going to be doing nothing while the Marxists destroyed the nation if the ship is not properly set back on course.
Great opinion. I concur. 🤓
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