Total tangent here, but re-reading the ruling has got me wondering where in the Constitution the Originalists found this principle.
I would say the basic separation of powers. If you can drag the president before the courts for any act taken in office, then the president is not the executive; the court system is.
Lower courts decide they can’t determine
That is a nonsensical position. Perhaps a judge determines they are not capable, and recuses themselves or otherwise resigns from the case: the case is reassigned to another judge. But any nitwit can make some sort of decision and support it with some sort of rationale.
The trial court judge cannot “send it up the courts”. They render a decision, and one of the litigants - not the judge - petitions the appellate court, arguing that the trial court’s rationale was wrong.
And since they set no standards, can determine them on partisan lines.
That is, and always has been, a risk in the judicial system established by our constitution. The checks and balances the legislative and judicial branch have against the court are few and weak.
At best, If SCOTUS engages in such shenanigans, such shenanigans will be engaged against SCOTUS: court packing, etc. Ultimately, though, the only real limit on the court is the willingness of We The People to accept its decisions.
Personally, and this is off on a tangent, I think we are due for a fundamental change to the way we empanel the courts, to reduce the politicization of the court. Instead of fixing the size of the court at 9, I think we should ignore the size of the court entirely, and just appoint one new, life-term justice in the first and third year of each presidential term. Any justice who dies or resigns is not replaced. The courts composition shifts on a slow, but steady pace. It does not stagnate due to justices timing their retirements for when a favorable replacement can be made. Nor does it lurch wildly when a justice gets that timing wrong and dies with the wrong party in the white house.
Further, I would adjust the confirmation process. If the president nominates a candidate who has been previously confirmed to a circuit court, no additional confirmation is required. The president thus has a small pool of qualified candidates he can elevate to the court directly, without needing to involve a hostile Senate.
No catch-22.
“Admissibility” refers to what the jury can hear, not the judge. The judge gets to hear about the act, and rule on it. If he rules it official, the jury never heard about it. If he rules it unofficial, the prosecutor is free to present it as evidence at trial.
Better shoot new HP
printersexecutives
FTFY. Those asshats are a clear and present danger to all of humanity.
You just have to convince a judge that the act was outside of his official duties.
Correct. That’s all you have to do.
and by the way, the evidence that the act was outside of his official duties is not admissible in court.
Correct. If the judge rules the act was official, it cannot be used as evidence at trial. On the other hand, when the judge rules it is not an official act, it is admissible. So again, you just have to convince the judge it wasn’t an official act.
What crime is Trump accused of where the only evidence of criminality is an official act? Answer: none. Not one. If he had stuck only to “official” acts, there would be no cause to charge him.
he can appeal the ruling. All the way back to the Supreme Court.
You are not actually suggesting that an accused criminal should not have access to an appeals process, so that criticism is invalid.
He is only immune from acts that fall within his job description. If you want to criminally charge the president for one of his actions, you will have to convince a judge that the act was outside his job description.
SCOTUS didn’t grant his immunity requests. They sent the case back to the trial court and told them “make sure you specify that this action was outside the scope of his official duties before you make your ruling”.
That’s it. SCOTUS didn’t do him any favors.
Women have enough problems with unwanted male interaction, not to mention so many lies about women’s anatomy. This makes it so much worse.
In this hypothetical, men switch from having a sexual interest in women 52/52 weeks a year to 4/52 weeks a year. I would expect a >92% reduction in “unwanted male interaction”.
The president is immune for any act he is authorized to perform: an “official” act. Any act he is not authorized to perform is an “unofficial” act. The immunity ruling doesn’t even slow down the criminal prosecutions against him. It’s not even a speed bump.
Everyone seems to forget Trump’s argument was that he was absolutely immune to all criminal prosecution for anything unless he was impeached for it first. SCOTUS rejected that argument outright, and opened the door for courts to declare his actions “unofficial”.
I’ll take the entrails of a priest.
Joenald Triden
It is not supposed to be easy to convict someone. It is a very high bar for a reason.
like if I shoot someone in self defense, I have to prove there was a threat to my person instead of me not liking their hat.
No, you don’t. The last state to place the burden of proof on you for defending yourself was Ohio, but they repealed their unconstitutional “Affirmative Defense” requirement in 2019. In every state, the burden is on the prosecutor to prove that your actions were not defensive, not yours to prove they were.
Likewise, it is the prosecutor’s burden to prove he was fraudulently “convinced”.
They absolutely can question intent. They just can’t use an “official act” as evidence of intent. They can use all the “unofficial acts” they want to demonstrate intent. And, once they decide that the bribe was an unofficial act, the door is opened to use it for intent as well.
Take conspiracy for example. The elements of conspiracy are:
Two or more people agreed to commit a crime
All conspirators had the specific intent to commit the crime
At least one of the conspirators committed an overt act
Trump conspires with false electors to rig the election. Trump’s is immune to charges stemming from his conversation with Pence, but he is not immune to charges of conspiring with false electors. His communication with Pence cannot be considered evidence of intent (#2), But it can be the overt act (#3) of the conspiracy.
You reversed the burden of proof. In a criminal case, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty. It is the prosecutor - not the accused president - who has to do the proving.
That is presumptively out of bounds for trial. That is a rebuttable presumption.
If our aim is to limit unneeded abortions
The only “unneeded” abortions are those that are forced on the mother against her will. Every other abortion is “needed”. (We have not previously considered forced abortions in this discussion, and I see no compelling reason to delve into them now. I mention them only in demonstration that the mother’s needs are valid, so the only abortion that is “unneeded” is the one that she has determined to be unneeded: an abortion forced upon her without her consent.)
The second part is dangerous because it could lessen actual amount of help for victims.
The only “help” our hypothetical victim has requested is an abortion, and she hasn’t requested it from you. She has requested it from someone ready, willing, and able to provide that help. Neither she nor that provider want you to be involved at all. She hasn’t asked for your help; she doesn’t want your help. Why are you choosing to involve yourself? What “help” are you going to force on her against her will?
About last point: I choose to presume consent
I’ll stop you right there. The rest of your argument is likely true, but the truthfulness of that second part does not justify the first part. You don’t get to make that “choice”.
The only time it is reasonable to presume consent is when you are actually presuming innocence. Where an individual is accused of committing a crime by acting without consent, presumption of innocence requires us to presume consent until proven otherwise beyond the shadow of a doubt. As our situation does not involve anyone accused of a criminal act, there is no valid justification to presume consent.
#You may never infer consent from silence.
If your personal code of morality only allows you to accept abortion in the case of non-consent, you may presume non-consent. You can satisfy your own morality by accepting the possibility that she was raped, and just doesn’t want to talk about it. You can simply presume she meets your arbitrary criteria; you have no need to actually prove her status to any degree of certainty.
The court only has to “presume” it was an official act. That presumption is rebuttable. The prosecutor would present an argument that such a bribe was not an “official” act; the judge is free to accept that argument.
Use of the military is delegated to him under article 2, his use of that power cannot be questioned.
The military is strictly limited on what kind of operations it is allowed to perform. The commander and operators of Seal Team 6 would be prosecuted if they obeyed an unlawful order, even if it came from their Commander in Chief. The president does not have the power to order Seal Team 6 to violate the Posse Comitatus act. The President does not have the power to violate his political rival’s right to due process. A prosecutor can argue that such an egregious order falls well outside the scope of the office, and constitutes an “unofficial act”. The courts are free to rule accordingly.
The dissents are reading far more into the majority opinion than is actually there. I suggest you read the majority opinion a little more closely.
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