81–90 of 1001 posts
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?
Would this ruling make Nixon’s actions in Watergate legal too?
Immunity for things they do as part of their official duties. I suppose it’s reasonable but the question will now turn to what is actually an official duty. The opposite holding, where they are liable for everything, would be untenable. Could Obama be prosecuted for ordering drone strikes that unintentionally killed two Americans? It seems like that world would hamstring the president far too much. I don’t know if th…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Abdulrahman_al-Awla...
To my mind, that is exactly the sort of thing I'd like to be hamstrung by a fear of prosecution.
(Trump ordered drone a drone strike that also killed Abdulrahman's eight-year-old American sister.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
Corrupt admins will already do that, so giving blanket immunity doesn't actually help anyone. All they need to then corruptly prosecute anyone is a court to agree that some act was "unofficial".
Immunity for things they do as part of their official duties. I suppose it’s reasonable but the question will now turn to what is actually an official duty. The opposite holding, where they are liable for everything, would be untenable. Could Obama be prosecuted for ordering drone strikes that unintentionally killed two Americans? It seems like that world would hamstring the president far too much. I don’t know if th…
Unintentionally? American citizens were the intended targets of some of his drone strikes. They weren't in warzones either, it was effectively murder.
Sotomayor's dissent ends: > Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abi…
I don't understand the personal gain part. How is that official capacity?
The way they’ve set this up, the people involved have a lot to do with it. It sure looks like the President can now openly discuss corruption like selling secrets or pardons with e.g. relevant cabinet members, and none of that can be prosecuted, nor can it be evidence presented in a prosecution of crimes.
The immunity granted is insanely broad.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would make it illegal to use the tapes as evidence against him. So it doesn't matter if it makes it legal or not, because it makes the illegality impossible to prove in a court of law by denying evidence to the prosecution.
Could you explain this a bit further?
> (3) Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution. On remand, the District Court must carefully analyze the indictment’s remaining allegations to determine whether they too involve conduct for which a President must be im- mune from prosecution. And the parties and the District Court must ensure that sufficient allegations support the indictment’s charges without such conduct. Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial.
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?
This is ridiculous! It's blatantly political and both parties are guilty of this. The justice system is meant to hold people accountable for breaking the law, not as an additional political mechanism for checks and balances. I haven't looked into the case and don't know the legal precedent SCOTUS used for this decision, but from a consequentialist standpoint this seems to me an obviously good outcome.
This has to be one of the worse courts in the last 100 years.