No system is foolproof, but rebuilding the entire judicial system from the ground up because the Democrats picked the wrong candidate in 2016 seems foolhardy to me.
Well, it’s not going to happen, so there’s that. But I think ratfuckery in the appointment of Justices will be the new normal for the foreseeable future. So, a boy can daydream at least.
You forgot to add the codicil that says that this decision should be understood to be one-off and not set any precedent for any future prosecution. After all, they wouldn’t want to prevent the DOJ going after Biden.
Actually, what I really expect is that will wait till June 30 to issue an equivocal ruling that official acts cannot be prosecuted, but unofficial ones can be and send it back to a lower court to determine if trying to overthrow an election is an official act.
I further expect that come 2028 Trump will run again since amendments are not self-executing and unless congress passes an act specifying how the 22nd amendment is to be enforced, no one has the ability to keep him off the ballot.
What?
I agree it’s likeliest that they bounce it back to lower courts for further needless bullshit, but I can’t believe they’d say any official act is off limits. That’s “Trump orders Seal Team six to assassinate a political opponent” or “Trump can order his armed forces to conduct a coup” territory.
Not sure what you mean - do you think Trump should be treated differently than Clinton would have been had she done the exact same things on Jan 6, 2017?
This really isn’t happening any more. A candidate that shows any of those signs doesn’t get on the court. It’s old, outdated thinking.
I don’t know that I blame someone like Brett Kavanaugh for being who he is. Because, to be honest, Kavanaugh is being rewarded very handsomely for being exactly who he is. If he didn’t exist, there would be another Kavanaugh clone lined right up behind him to collect the same rewards. For sure, a lot of people don’t respect him. But others think him a knight in shining armor and will pay $$$$$ for him to give speeches, write books, etc. In fact he’s probably more profitable as a partisan hack than he ever could be as a thoughtful person.
Money and partisanship have perhaps ruined our system beyond repair. EVERYONE involved in the system profits by keeping the partisan fight going, rather than by being reasonable. As long as the system is for sale, you aren’t going to get “reasonable” congresspeople, senators, jurists. Because “reasonable” people wouldn’t need campaign contributions. You just need those if you need to get one side elected. But the money involved, and the need to maintain a partisan fight to keep that money rolling in, are heavily corrupting.
This thread got me to wondering about how the Supreme Court of Canada does things and I found this snippet from the FAQ page with details on how the Justices are picked and when they must retire:
The Supreme Court of Canada consists of nine judges, including the Chief Justice of Canada, who are appointed by the Governor in Council and all of whom must have been either a judge of a superior court or a member of at least ten years’ standing of the bar of a province or territory. A Judge holds office during good behaviour, until he or she retires or attains the age of 75 years, but is removable for incapacity or misconduct in office before that time by the Governor General on address of the Senate and House of Commons. Of the nine, the Supreme Court Act requires that three be appointed from Quebec. Traditionally, the Governor in Council has appointed three judges from Ontario, two from the Western provinces or Northern Canada and one from the Atlantic provinces.
Obviously the regional restrictions need not apply in the US (unless there would be some benefit to having one judge from Texas, one from California, one from New York, etc) and I am pretty sure there is no US equivalent to the Governor-General.
I also found out today that the Supreme Court of Canada livestreams their proceedings and maintains an archive on their website.
To bring this marginally back towards the direction of the topic, I don’t think absolute immunity would work in Canada. Justin Trudeau couldn’t just go out and rob a bank and then laugh because no one can do anything about it. Having said that, there must be some principle of immunity because if not, he would have been subject to all kinds of nonsense from citizens who irrationally hate his guts. Not sure how it works but long story short, I am not at all under the impression that a Canadian leader would be immune from consequences if they did something that was a clear violation of criminal law.
Similar in the UK - a court of 12, not all of whom will necessarily hear all cases, appointed on the recommendation of an independent non-partisan professional panel (as are lower levels of the judiciary), with a mandatory retirement age of 75.
3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Cartalk Troll Posts
A lot of other appointed US government positions have a ten year term, specifically because it will bridge more than one Presidency. That logic feels good to me. These people are usually judges to begin with, and have followed previous SC deliberations, so it’s not like they’re coming in to the job with no prior experience. Most of them should be up to speed within their first year, if they were the right person for the job.
In actual fact, PM Trudeau was actually investigated by the RCMP to determine if criminal charges should be laid.
So no, he’s definitely not immune.
ETA: lots of more information here, for both Canada and the UK traditions we based a lot of our government on.
https://www.ourcommons.ca/marleaumontpetit/DocumentViewer.aspx?DocId=1001&Sec=Ch03&Seq=9&Language=E
Moderating:
Do not insult posters on the SDMB outside of the The BBQ Pit
For Thomas and his bribe taking? Sounds about right.
Out in 5 with good behavior?
I am really hoping that SCOTUS rules in favor of absolute immunity and then Biden promptly behaves like a despot and Trumpers howl in terror and rage.
Both of those outcomes are horrific to me. I don’t want the US to be run by a despot and I don’t want Trump to have immunity for his alleged crimes. It’s not worth the end of our democracy to say “ha ha” to MAGA-types.
It wouldn’t be about pwning the MAGAts. Off the top of my head, I can think of a half dozen things Biden could do to decimate the GOPs strength at every level of government – if he had no fear of being prosecuted for those actions and no ethics about carrying them out.
Alas, he should have that fear and almost certainly has those ethics.
Oh, I don’t want to see it, but I admit to a certain degree of schadenfreude in that the SCOTUS gives limited Immunity and Biden says “Is this really what you want?”
Then arranges for 2-4 members of the SCOTUS to be killed, 20% of the Senate, about 30% of the house, and a number of federal judges (eyeballing Canon among others), as well as a large number of state legislature criminals.
Then, refills the SCOTUS and asks the rest of the nation to pass a constitutional amendment to make CLEAR that NO, the President isn’t immune and offers to turn himself in as soon as it passes.
Dark Brandon FTW.
No, I don’t think it’ll ever happen. And as @RitterSport mentions, it’s not a positive frisson past the first heartbeat. But it would be closer to justice than many of these people would ever experience, insulated as their are by wealth, influence and laws they write to protect themselves while ignoring everyone else.