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Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

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

#441

Post by pseudalopex »

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...

> Obama ordered an American Citizen to be assassinated via a drone attack, without a trial or anything. Should he be charged with murder?

Yes.

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

#442

Post by impalallama »

venusenvy47 wrote: post #361
impalallama wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial Wouldn’t this have made it impossible to prosecute Nixon for Watergate?

This is the big red flag for me. A court can't review whether the conduct was official. This seems like the court wants to remove the checks and balances between the government branches.

Yes, immunity for "official duties" sounds reasonable until you read all the justices own words and realize how purposely broad and far reaching these duties are.

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

#443

Post by janalsncm »

beaeglebeachedd wrote: post #337
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.

The 10th amendment was supposed to restrain the federal government to a few enumerated powers. It was gutted via interstate commerce being everything, and you can't give it up because people will start screaming about the civil rights act or the EPA or something. President, as envisioned by founders, should barely even matter outside of war.

> the civil rights act

How would you square the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause with enumerated powers?

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

#444

Post by burutthrow1234 »

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…

I can't tell what your stance is on the al-Awlaki assassination? If the leader of a country orders an extra-judicial killing, especially of one of their own citizens, that seems like it deserves criminal penalties.

People get very judgemental when Putin assassinates defectors, but when Obama does it it's ok?

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

#446

Post by CydeWeys »

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…

> This decision says that shouldn't happen because it was an official act as president.

And of course, if it's something that the Supreme Court wants a president to face consequences for for partisan reasons, they can simply use their majority to say that whatever they didn't like was not an official act.

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

#447

Post by asdff »

Can anyone pencil out the real danger of this position? Sotomayors opinion seems to posit that a president can receive a bribe and pardon someone for that and this is an official, immune act. However, I don't think soliciting a bribe would be considered an official act of the POTUS, and by what I have been able to understand from this opinion would still be subject to prosecution. I also think that this opinion seems to be exactly in line with existing legal precedent. Truman was never prosecuted for the massacres he presided on. Nixon was never prosecuted. Reagen was never prosecuted. We just don't seem to ever prosecute ex presidents at all whether we had this opinion to spell it out for us or not.

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

#448

Post by nickburns »

leotravis10 wrote: post #124

Folks, the blueprint for a American dictatorship has been created and you'll be a fool and a idiot to think otherwise.

what a dramatic take. surely you haven't read the actual opinion.

for posterity, this is "the blueprint for a [sic] American dictatorship" to which you refer:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

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

#449

Post by lesuorac »

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.

Founding Fathers didn't write the constitution.

They wrote the Articles of Confederation which failed leading to the Framers writing the Constitution.

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

#450

Post by janalsncm »

blibble wrote: post #432
jimbokun wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If anything that is more impressive given the tiny size of the UK, few natural resources, and miserable weather.
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