Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

821–830 of 1001 posts

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

#821

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

adriand wrote: post #716
kemotep wrote: post #310

My limited understanding of the ruling: The ruling states that the President is immune from prosecution while exercising official duties of the office of President but can be investigated by a special counsel that is appointed by an act of Congress, and if successfully impeached and convicted can then be charged with said crimes. “Unofficial” acts are not protected by this immunity but a special counsel is still requ…

This ruling seems to open the door to a president being immune from, say, commanding SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival. “In its ruling, the Supreme Court decided there was no question that Mr. Trump enjoyed immunity from being prosecuted for one of those methods: his efforts to strong-arm the Justice Department into validating his false claims that the election had been marred by widespread fraud. That was…

SCOTUS said there was an extra procedural step, namely impeachment and conviction by the Senate. Ultimately the Senate would decide factually, whether that hypothetical action was an appropriate basis for further criminal prosecution.

Prosecuting a president fundamentally is a political act, and why would we think a random DC bureaucrat better qualified to make a consequential political act than the Senate itself?

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

#822

Post by larkost »

runjake wrote: post #96
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #4

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…

> Could Obama be prosecuted for ordering drone strikes that unintentionally killed two Americans? If you're referring to Anwar Al-Awlaki and his son, both US citizens, it was intentional . If you're not referring to this, Obama's already done this without getting charged. Being POTUS is an unenviable job. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki Edit: Since people are assuming my views on this topic, I'll say th…

I don't like the killing by a drone (to easy for it to be misused), I am less ok with the killing of his 16-year-old son, and even less so for his daughters killing.

But... It seems he was a member of al-Qaeda, and the "Public Law 107–40 107th Congress Joint Resolution" passed by congress did authorize:

> That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force > against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, > authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on > September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to > prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States > by such nations, organizations or persons.

That does seem to authorize extra-judical killing in this case. I am not really happy about any of this, but since we are talking legalities, this seems to apply.

https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf

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

#823

Post by amalcon »

umvi wrote: post #542
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.

They were widely understood to not have that immunity prior to either today or 2020, depending on how you track it. Somehow, that didn't happen.

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

#824

Post by rayiner »

alberth wrote: post #808

Unitary Executive Theory The movie “Vice” explains well what this is about. It’s was originally imploded by President George W Bush. https://youtu.be/_UPvTdDB-h0 —- SCOTUS essentially ruled in favor of this theory.

This has nothing to do with unitary executive. Immunity of the head of state derives from the concept of sovereign immunity, the government’s immunity from suit. In the U.S., it derives from the Crown’s immunity against suit.

The notion that former heads of state have some sort of immunity for official acts is also common in developed countries: https://oxcon.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law-mpeccol/law-mpe...

“Functional immunity applies to both sitting and former heads of state; however, this immunity is available to such individuals solely with respect to acts performed in their official capacity (Fox 667).”

This notion is the core of the supreme court’s holding in this case.

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

#825

Post by rayiner »

kemotep wrote: post #310

My limited understanding of the ruling: The ruling states that the President is immune from prosecution while exercising official duties of the office of President but can be investigated by a special counsel that is appointed by an act of Congress, and if successfully impeached and convicted can then be charged with said crimes. “Unofficial” acts are not protected by this immunity but a special counsel is still requ…

It also reflects common practice: https://oxcon.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law-mpeccol/law-mpe... (“ 3 Functional immunity applies to both sitting and former heads of state; however, this immunity is available to such individuals solely with respect to acts performed in their official capacity (Fox 667).”)

France, for example, has prosecuted former presidents for things like bribery. But I don’t think you can prosecute a former president of France for something he told the Ministry of Justice to do.

I suspect this distinction between official and unofficial acts is also what most people assumed the law was, until Trump forced the Supreme Court to confront it under a particularly unsympathetic set of facts.

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

#826

Post by sanderjd »

mandmandam wrote: post #820
DEADMINCE wrote: post #818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Out of context this is quite reasonable and level headed. In context of the hyper partisan landscape US politics are today, doesn’t seem likely without a supermajority opposition to be able to bring charges against a president, In context though, it's quite terrifying given how much the US has fallen into tribalism. Half the population wouldn't convict a certain candidate no matter what they did.

[flagged]

Actually it's not true of both sides. Hunter Biden was tried and convicted and nobody is up in arms about it, because he did the crimes and should do his time. If his father has done any crimes he should do the time as well.

Most people still think this. The only people who don't are those in thrall to one particular cult of personality.

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

#827

Post by s1artibartfast »

dagmx wrote: post #26
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?

I can’t defend the ruling based on the actual effects, because it puts someone above the law. However one could argue that this is the logical extension of qualified immunity for police officers which is precedent the court has already set. To be clear though, I think qualified immunity of any sort shouldn’t be allowed. It’s a subversion of any kind of fair justice.

qualified immunity makes perfect sense. It would be impossible to have a police force without it. What is wrong with qualified immunity is the "clearly established law" standard, which requires prior case law precedent to pierce qualified immunity.

It is also worth nothing that qualified immunity provides no protection for criminal actions, the enforcement of which are an entirely separate challenge.

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

#828

Post by DEADMINCE »

mandmandam wrote: post #820
DEADMINCE wrote: post #818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Out of context this is quite reasonable and level headed. In context of the hyper partisan landscape US politics are today, doesn’t seem likely without a supermajority opposition to be able to bring charges against a president, In context though, it's quite terrifying given how much the US has fallen into tribalism. Half the population wouldn't convict a certain candidate no matter what they did.

[flagged]

[flagged]

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

#829

Post by [deleted] »

api wrote: post #815
alberth wrote: post #808

Unitary Executive Theory The movie “Vice” explains well what this is about. It’s was originally imploded by President George W Bush. https://youtu.be/_UPvTdDB-h0 —- SCOTUS essentially ruled in favor of this theory.

I always wonder about these kinds of power play doctrines: do they really think only people they like will ever be in power? Same question applies to either party when they push stuff like this.

[deleted]

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

#830

Post by sanderjd »

alistairSH wrote: post #31
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?

This is like qualified immunity (usually for police), but applied to POTUS. You want public servants to be able to do their jobs without fear of time-wasting litigation. But, if you grant blanket immunity, the poilice (or POTUS) are free to do whatever they want. We're quite clearly tilted way over into "do what they want" territory.

Qualified immunity is already really bad though...
Post reply on HN