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

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

#541

Post by torstenvl » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 8:44 PM UTC

amadeuspagel wrote: post #490

vlovich123 wrote: post #464

I think the saddest thing is how lying under oath during a Senate confirmation hearing doesn’t revoke the confirmation. Basically Kavanaugh did what everyone said he would and he overturned US v Nixon even though he lied about it during his confirmation even though before he argued repeatedly it was a bad decision. So either he lied or he miraculously changed his beliefs for the duration of the Senate hearing. https:…

I think the saddest thing is that judges are expected to answer how they would rule on specific cases to be confirmed. What is even the point of an independent supreme court, if politicians can have guarantees as to how specific cases are decided?

Appreciate your moral courage in going against the grain on HN. Not as sad, but still deeply sad that a site that prohibits ideological battle in its guidelines has become powerless to stop Twittermobbing on here.

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

#542

Post by umvi » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 8:45 PM UTC

riffic wrote: post #102

ah just laying the foundation for a lovely despotic future.

Seems like the alternative is equally dystopian though. If ex-presidents don't have immunity for their actions in office, then every ex-president will have to fend off a flurry of lawsuits and prosecution attempts by the opposite party. It would be an absolute circus and turn the office of president into a joke.

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

#543

Post by inpdx » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 8:45 PM UTC

throwadobe wrote: post #518

afavour wrote: post #8

I'm dismayed by this ruling but I'm curious: can someone defend it? I'm able to understand the counter-perspectives to my own on many hot-button issues (2nd amendment, abortion bans) but this one seems very nakedly bad. But maybe I'm just not seeing the counterpoint?

Everyone seems to be calling this "blanket immunity" but that's not right. It's immunity for official acts which are the prerogative of the president. Basically the president is allowed to do all presidential things without having to worry about whether it will be deemed illegal. This doesn't mean that the president cannot be tried for some illegal act that was not their official duty. Murdering someone, for example.

Anything can be made an official act. That's why this is unfathomably bad.

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

#544

Post by unethical_ban » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 8:45 PM UTC

boole1854 wrote: post #505

cdme wrote: post #487

It's remarkable the speed at which the court has discarded any semblance of legitimacy. Perhaps future administrations should simply ignore them and dare them to act.

[flagged]

Since a not-small portion of the US constitutional law community does feel this way and you're playing the "cite your sources" card, cite some sources.

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

#545

Post by metabagel » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 8:45 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #531

BadHumans wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the Court killing the Chevron Deference, they have given themselves all the power to decide what is an official act and what isn't. Anything not spelled out in plain terms will be interpreted by them and nothing is spelled in plain terms.

I though the chevron deference related to how federal orgs like e.g. the epa pen their own policy and trying to put that policy writing power back into the legislative branch vs through the executive who appoints these orgs? I am not educated in law and would like to clear up some of my misunderstanding.

So, this is about connecting the dots between different Supreme Court decisions.

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

#546

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 8:46 PM UTC

Article III of the U.S. Constitution is incredibly brief [1].

I propose the Supreme Court be reconstituted such that for each case a panel of judges from the appellate courts is chosen by lot. They hear that case, write their opinion, and then go back to that work. New case, new lot.

Having a permanent bench of judicial oligarchs made sense before telecommunication. It doesn’t anymore. Every ancient democracy used randomness to control corruption. I think it’s time we took a lesson from them.

(Note: this could be done by statute. How the supreme Court is constituted is entirely left to Congress.)

[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-3/

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

#547

Post by inpdx » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 8:47 PM UTC

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #18

afavour wrote: post #8

I'm dismayed by this ruling but I'm curious: can someone defend it? I'm able to understand the counter-perspectives to my own on many hot-button issues (2nd amendment, abortion bans) but this one seems very nakedly bad. But maybe I'm just not seeing the counterpoint?

If presidents could be prosecuted for their official acts then the next time the other party takes over they will just immediately find various crimes their predecessor “committed” (there are probably 10s of 1000s of them).

"If presidents could be prosecuted for their official acts"

This has always been presumed to be the case yet it has never resulted in what you say. It's a nonsense theoretical as cover for what is otherwise utterly indefensible as making the president king.

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

#548

Post by rtkwe » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 8:47 PM UTC

hartator wrote: post #111

margalabargala wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The President shouldn't have the legal authority to conduct any drone strikes without a declaration of war from Congress. We've been ignoring the Constitution for a very long time. What part of the Constitution are we ignoring? According to the Constitution, the President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. The Constitution does not say that war must be declared for the armed forces to operate. Thus, ord…

> The Constitution does not say that war must be declared for the armed forces to operate. It does. Armed forces killing people is a state of war. If not, it's policing then it's under the judiciary authority, not the president.

The current standing precedent/law is the President only has to notify Congress within 48 hours of an action and must remove troops within 60 days if Congress has not approved an extension. Formal declarations of war are separate from short military actions legally. It's an extremely messy part of constitutional law precisely because of the split between the power to do and the power to authorize.

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

#549

Post by mywittyname » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 8:47 PM UTC

tomohawk wrote: post #348

The Supreme Court took what should be a straightforward and elegant decision — the president is immune from prosecution for acts committed in office unless he has been impeached for those acts — and turned it into angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin litigation about what constitutes official and unofficial acts. Starting on page 44 of the opinion, Thomas makes some very good points. I write separately to highlight another wa…

These are terrible points! Asserting that a special prosecutor is akin to a private prosecutor is absurd. They are just like other prosecutors, the only reason to use a special prosecutor is to avoid making the case seem political.

Also, the fact that other Presidents did illegal shit and we didn't prosecute them, thus they are above the law is also absurd.

The current ruling whips out the, "there's nothing in the constitution stating we can do things we've always done" when its convenient, then goes on to say, "we've always been doing it this way, implying it's in the constitution" when its convenient.

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

#550

Post by tines » Mon, Jul 01, 2024, 8:48 PM UTC

locococo wrote: post #517

I think a big problem here is that all existing laws and the system concerning presidents rests on one very important assumption. That the commander in chief is a decent, rational human being that carefully considers his actions and holds the interest of the United States and the Citizens in high regards. It all falls apart and gets too complicated to regulate when the assumption is that you can't trust the person in…

I don't think this is true. The constitution was designed with the idea of preventing a king from coming to power. The whole separation of powers thing presumes that an individual is bad, but groups are less bad.