Police do not have immunity from criminal prosecution. They have limited (some might call it qualified) immunity against civil action. They can’t be sued for their actions except under certain circumstances. For instance if they kill someone on a call they are not prosecuted when it’s found to be done legally in accordance to the law not because they are immune from prosecution.
I don’t know of any government personnel who have criminal immunity. Many have civil immunity.
So I’m still unsure of the logistics. Like there are two obvious outcomes. The correct one: Trump doesn’t have immunity, case denied see you in court (J6 case continues where it left off, probably just enough time to start before election). The bonkers one: POTUS has full immunity, its open season on all non-POTUSes blast away!
But now there is a third outcome where SCOTUS doesn’t rule at all? They (or a majority of SCOTUSes) just say we aren’t saying one way or another. We are going to need you (you being the lower court judge) to rule for us? (Coincidentally ensuring their beloved former POTUS doesn’t have to face a jury of his peers for trying to overturn the last election before the next one)
Some courts just love to punt on the big questions.
The SC will rule, but that ruling may just be, “The lower court erred in their broad conclusion that presidents lack immunity for all criminal prosecutions”, and send it back with instructions to do it over again, but no explicit guidance on exactly how the lower court should have ruled. Thus, the lower court is again in the position of having to make a ruling, which ruling can then be appealed.
Were the SC interested in actually settling this question, it could write a comprehensive ruling, but then, if they were really interested in settling the question, why would they introduce all this unnecessary delay? When it was a simple question asking if a State could bar Trump from being on the ballot, they issued a pro-Trump ruling with very little delay. So why the longer delays in this case? Because they know a blanket pro-Trump ruling is a disaster waiting to happen, but they don’t want to have an anti-Trump ruling on the books before the election. So, delay delay delay.
They rule that the president has immunity for crimes that are also official acts of the president. So, Trump says that sending a mob to the Capitol is an official act, and the lower court judge disagrees, then Trump appeals to a higher court, and to SCOTUS, etc.
That is, SCOTUS may require the lower court to separate out official acts from non-official acts, and I’m sure all of those determinations would be appealed.
I think we’re making the term “official act” overly broad. The Trump team acknowledged reluctantly when pushed to do so that, for example, ordering Seal Team 6 to kill a political opponent is an official act, immune from prosecution. He is the Commander-in-Chief, after all, and directing the military is his duty and prerogative.
I don’t think even the Alito faction of the court would entertain this. They’re unnecessarily slicing the issue so finely that they refuse to state, for now, exactly where the line is. But I don’t think this will end up with the type of broad immunity Trump is arguing, with “official act” as the bright line. It’s a delaying tactic, nothing more.
Ultimately no, but they would be happy to take the appeal, stick on the docket for sometime in the future, and just take their time resolving it.
Yep. I think that’s it in a nutshell.
The OP’s question was very specifically pointed at news reports and news commentators, and why they believe that SCOTUS will rule in this particular way (although most of the posts have not discussed this). I can see two possible answers to that, and maybe some of both:
Based on the oral arguments and questions from justices, it seems to the commentators and pundits that there are probably enough votes to rule in that way, with varying estimates of that probability. This is what commentators and pundits do for a living. And/or
The cynical me assumes that news organizations always, always will predict whatever outcome, out of the two or three most likely ones, that will keep the most people (at least the most people in their usual audience) tuned in through the most news cycles. So maybe they exaggerate the likelihood of a doom outcome, at least partly for that reason. Indeed, I believe that news organizations, at least at the highest levels, hope for maximum uncertainty for as long as possible on any issue that interests a lot of people. Cynical me signing off.
That immunity is for civil liability. You can’t sue a cop for money if they are acting in their official capacity. Same for the president. You can’t sue him to force him to do or not do something.
But these government workers have never had criminal immunity.
The reason you can’t charge him for murder is because he didn’t commit murder. But what he did must still be legal. It’s not that the president is allowed to commit murder and then has immunity from being charged; it’s that it is legal for the president to act as the commander in chief.
Again, the distinction between what you might do and what the president does is that the president is acting in accordance with his legal authority, not that the president is afforded criminal immunity.
No government official has criminal immunity. To rule otherwise is to say that a person can break the law, and in the United States that has never historically been the case.
OP, that must help explain why the pundits are so concerned. They struggle to imagine the rationale by which the court would grant such a dangerous power, and so they figure this must just be performance art to give donald time. Because if it’s not, and they are seriously contemplating allowing the president to break the law, then we are no longer a constitutional republic.
I thought a mafia boss ordering people to whack someone is as guilty of murder as the person who pulled the trigger?
Even if that is legal for the president what about ordering the assassination of a foreign leader (say, Fidel Castro)? Or any assassination? What about the people who tried to do that (CIA operatives and leadership)? What about ordering torture? Suspending habeas corpus? Forcing down a diplomatic flight in another country with someone the US wants to arrest? Breaking the emoluments clause? Lots of things Henry Kissinger did (sufficient that I do not think he could not leave the US in his later years for fear of being arrested in another country)?
While there may not be explicit immunity those people sure have seemed immune from prosecution or consequences.
Maybe when you run the DOJ you get effective immunity from federal crimes.
Careful, I said keep this one narrow focusd. Please don’t drift off-topic to Mafia bosses.
So this came up on my Twitter feed. Random Twitter legal commentary so can’t speak for veracity. But it seems all hope is not completely lost:
A post was split to a new topic: Apparently justice Alito is sympathetic to the January 6 rioters