Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts • Hacker News Board

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#431

Post by asdff » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 7:56 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #360

janalsncm wrote: post #241

Maybe we can stop acting like the Founding Fathers were political geniuses. They created a system where the only real recourse against a president is political, and a political system where political recourse is essentially impossible. A two party system is the logical conclusion of a first past the post voting system, which they have created. It is a bug, and fixing it is also effectively impossible.

They wrote the document defining the currently longest running continuous government in the world. Is the Constitution perfect? No. But it's still fair to call them geniuses for what they accomplished. Also, you are arguing the Founders interpretation of the Constitution is the same as the current Supreme Court. I'm not sure they would agree, but there's no way we can ever know.

By that logic we drop everything and adopt the government of ancient rome because its one thats good for at least a thousand years by precedent

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#432

Post by blibble » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 7:56 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #360

janalsncm wrote: post #241

Maybe we can stop acting like the Founding Fathers were political geniuses. They created a system where the only real recourse against a president is political, and a political system where political recourse is essentially impossible. A two party system is the logical conclusion of a first past the post voting system, which they have created. It is a bug, and fixing it is also effectively impossible.

They wrote the document defining the currently longest running continuous government in the world. Is the Constitution perfect? No. But it's still fair to call them geniuses for what they accomplished. Also, you are arguing the Founders interpretation of the Constitution is the same as the current Supreme Court. I'm not sure they would agree, but there's no way we can ever know.

> the currently longest running continuous government in the world.

the Isle of Man goes back to 1000 or so

the current UK system is essentially identical to that of 1689 and has legal governmental continuity since 1066

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#433

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 7:56 PM UTC

blindriver wrote: post #412

treeFall wrote: post #98

>The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. I would consider this an extreme knee jerk take, but it's Sotomayor saying it. https://x.com/mikedebonis/status/180…

Obama ordered an American Citizen to be assassinated via a drone attack, without a trial or anything. Should he be charged with murder? https://www.amnestyusa.org/updates/is-it-legal-for-the-u-s-t...

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#434

Post by diob » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 7:57 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #179

treeFall wrote: post #98

>The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. I would consider this an extreme knee jerk take, but it's Sotomayor saying it. https://x.com/mikedebonis/status/180…

To give the majority opinion its own voice: > The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energ…

Given how the Republicans treat pardons (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair#Par...) I think we can all guess how this will be used in reality.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#435

Post by legitster » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 7:58 PM UTC

riskable wrote: post #382

legitster wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ruling says that 3 of the 4 indictments against Trump can proceed so long as prosecutors make a case that the President was acting outside of his duties. A president being incompetent or immoral in his line of duty is an issue for voters or congress to decide on. But a White House bogged down in lawsuits or petty criminal charges would cease to function.

If a president assassinates his political rivals I don't think you can say it's, "an issue for voters or congress to decide on." That would be impossible, since anyone the voters wanted to replace the sitting executive or his allies would just be arrested or murdered outright (as an official act, no less!).

I don't think anyone in the ruling outside of Sotomayor implies that murdering political rivals would fall under an official duty of the president as outlined in the constitution.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#436

Post by jcranmer » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 7:58 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #318

lolinder wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give the majority opinion its own voice: > The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energ…

It's worth considering the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, that was killed by Obama outside of a combat zone. (I'm avoiding the word "assassinated" because it seems overly charged.) In theory, some prosector could have decided to charge Obama with a crime, and maybe even achieved a conviction in a jurisdiction where he's unpopular. This decision says that shouldn't happen because it was an official act…

The case of Anwar al-Awlaki is exactly the kind of case where I think the president should face criminal liability for murder. Although, as he was murdered in a foreign country, no court in the US has jurisdiction for the president to be prosecuted; but if he had been murdered on US soil, it would be absolutely appropriate for a jury to decide whether or not it is justifiable for the president to order the death of somebody merely for speaking the wrong words.

Another topic that hasn't come up quite as much is the fact that this is an immunity proposition, not a defense. What SCOTUS is saying is that we aren't permitted to even ask if the president is reasonable in his beliefs; any trial on the merits is completely and totally foreclosed--that's what immunity means. Just a few days ago, SCOTUS decided that it's absolutely important that administrative law procedures need to go through the step of being heard by a jury trial, and now here it's saying that it's absolutely important that the president never be burdened by the prospect of having to have a jury weigh their actions.

It's just... really galling that SCOTUS would decide that the constitution requires that the president be a king above the law, exactly the sort of thing that England fought a few civil wars over before the US even sought its independence.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#437

Post by skadamou » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 7:58 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #360

janalsncm wrote: post #241

Maybe we can stop acting like the Founding Fathers were political geniuses. They created a system where the only real recourse against a president is political, and a political system where political recourse is essentially impossible. A two party system is the logical conclusion of a first past the post voting system, which they have created. It is a bug, and fixing it is also effectively impossible.

They wrote the document defining the currently longest running continuous government in the world. Is the Constitution perfect? No. But it's still fair to call them geniuses for what they accomplished. Also, you are arguing the Founders interpretation of the Constitution is the same as the current Supreme Court. I'm not sure they would agree, but there's no way we can ever know.

I think you mean that the US has the longest continuous running democracy - not just government [1] I think this true and I agree with you that the while the constitution is not perfect, it is still an incredibly impressive document.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/08/countries-are-the-wor...

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#438

Post by TimTheTinker » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 7:59 PM UTC

greentxt wrote: post #396

I'm imaging an index that measures the semantic similarity between reddit and hn threads on a particular topic. I feel like adding that measure to front page to allow users to sort threads would be beneficial in increasing signal-to-noise and help hn maintain a more distinct brand identity.

Comparing HN to reddit is expressly off-topic:

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#439

Post by asveikau » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 7:59 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #318

lolinder wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give the majority opinion its own voice: > The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energ…

It's worth considering the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen, that was killed by Obama outside of a combat zone. (I'm avoiding the word "assassinated" because it seems overly charged.) In theory, some prosector could have decided to charge Obama with a crime, and maybe even achieved a conviction in a jurisdiction where he's unpopular. This decision says that shouldn't happen because it was an official act…

> Of course, if congress doesn't like something a president is doing, they can change the laws and remove his or her legal authority to do something.

No, the supreme court just gave the president immunity for exactly this. This exact scenario is quoted upthread:

> Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution.

It's curious because this would also seem to legalize the Watergate scandal and Nixon's famous line "if the president does it, its not illegal".

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#440

Post by diob » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 7:59 PM UTC

treeFall wrote: post #185

lolinder wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give the majority opinion its own voice: > The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energ…

Then it sounds like Sotomayor is being extreme by conflating domestic political assassinations as an "official act." Does she not understand the difference?

If you think it's extreme you haven't been paying attention to how Republicans have been acting with the "get out of jail free" card for years.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair#Par...