I’m not sure what you’re saying. The part you quoted explicitly says that conviction or acquittal in an impeachment trial is completely separate from indictment, trial and judgment under the law. There is no double jeopardy concerns, no matter what charges we’re talking about.
ETA: oh, are you arguing since he was acquitted, it would be double jeopardy to try him on those charges in a court of law? That the Constitution is silent on acquittals, which means an impeachment conviction is different from a legal conviction, but an acquittal is the same? That’s a novel idea.
We will probably see what the Supreme Court thinks.
Here’s another reason I hope Trump wins on the double jeopardy issue:
There are reasonable chance Biden will be impeached and then properly acquitted in the Senate. Then, red state prosecutors — some modern-day Jim Garrison — will start looking for some tie to their state that would allow them to indict Biden for what the Senate just acquitted him.
Not me. I do not share your eagerness to give Trump every benefit of the doubt. Let them indict Biden. If the evidence shows he’s guilty of something, put him in jail.
Impeachment isn’t relevant to double jeopardy, because it’s not single jeopardy. The fact that conviction doesn’t bear any punishment other than removal and disqualification from office means that it doesn’t bar prosecutions that do have other punishments.
And yeah, if any Republican is again President in Biden’s lifetime, they probably will try to prosecute him. Either the courts will do their job, or democracy in this country is over. A silly notion of double jeopardy won’t make a difference in either case.
I’m sorry, are you saying that you think double jeopardy attaching due to Congressional impeachment and acquittal would be correct here - both a correct reading of the Constitution and also just? (With a straight face?) I don’t know how else to parse that.
This is a familiar concern of yours. I just don’t see it happening. A former president has to be really crooked to get prosecuted. Like Trump. A prosecutor indicting Biden would be flirting with serious sanctions, like Trump’s lawyers in the election lawsuits. Prosecutors tend to be civil servants and might be an R or a D, but I haven’t seen many politically motivated prosecutions. I don’t necessarily doubt it happens, but if it does it’s rare and probably ineffective. Look at how the House is struggling to even come up with a plausible lie about Biden that would justify impeachment (which is truly a political act).
Republicans are going to behave dishonestly and dishonorably no matter what Democrats do. So we might as well try to do the right thing, and prosecute unrepentant criminals like Trump.
Obviously somebody at some point decided that the correct interpretation of “life and limb” is not literally capital punishment or amputation. How is it interpreted under normal circumstances, exactly? Is it all criminal cases, or just those where there is the possibility of “loss of part of your life” through imprisonment?
Doing just a little reading on it, civil asset forfeiture it is not considered double jeopardy. It’s considered bullshit, but not double jeopardy. If that is not double jeopardy, surely impeachment is not, either. It looks like the courts have interpreted double jeopardy only to occur when dealing with explicitly punitive consequences.
As well, Judge Claiborne was convicted on federal charges while on the bench.
He was then impeached and removed from office.
No double jeopardy there. Two different processes, two different outcomes: conviction in federal court did not bar impeachment, followed by trial in the Senate.
The Constitution explicitly says conviction in an impeachment trial is separate from a legal trial and does not invoke double jeopardy. PhillyGuy admits this. His argument is that the Supreme Court must decide if the reverse is true: if you are acquitted in an impeachment trial, you might be immune from prosecution under the law. It’s a ridiculous argument with no justification, but that’s what he’s suggesting.
I would also argue that he was impeached for the one thing Jack Smith didn’t charge him with, incitement of insurrection.
Smith’s charges are related to the other various crimes Trump committed in his post-election meltdown….the fake elector plot, the pressure campaign on Pence, the DOJ letter, but IIRC he wasn’t directly charged with inciting the January 6th insurrection.
ETA: I’m thinking that Trump knows he’ll lose on this motion to dismiss, but he plans to appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court, where I predict he will lose 7-2, and we all know who the 2 are.
If South American liberals took the position that democracy is over whenever a caudillo took power, there would be no democracy there today. Since I think a strongman is likely to be my president fifteen months from now, civil liberties protection is my priority. And double jeopardy protection is an important civil liberty when the government tries to use courts against their political opponents, as I expect DJT to do if again in power. If the Republicans, two or three years from now, can’t get a 2/3 Senate conviction vote against a Democratic judge, or a Democratic member of congress, or a non-partisan civil service executive who resists Trump’s possibly illegal orders, precedent should be that red state prosecutors don’t get another shot at them.
There will be cowardly judges, and brave ones. I want the brave ones to have as many tools as possible.
I want criminals held accountable, even if they’re named Trump.
“Yeah, but if we hold Trump accountable…” is meaningless to me, counterproductive, and dangerous.
Obviously I don’t. Despite the U.S. having the world’s highest incarceration rate (or close to it), the great majority of crimes go unpunished. I feel for the families of murder victims affected by this fact. But when it comes to the victims of crooked politicians, no.
Trump’s legal proceedings should go on as normally as feasible, but with civil liberties preserved. And Trump has already been tried and a acquitted, in the Senate, of roughly half the counts in his indictments. If the appellate courts eventually rule that double-jeopardy protection doesn’t apply here, so be it. But I prefer stronger double-jeopardy protection to weaker.
As I’ve posted before, with links, when one national leader is put on trial, and imprisoned, more follow. Trump has also said he will go after the civil service. We should think about that now.
Multiple trials for the same offense, without an intervening mistrial, is an unfortunate precedent likely to become evident in the next 10-20 years.