Posted on 08/23/2023 8:46:13 AM PDT by Heartlander
Doesn’t matter. The would simply charge Trump with something else or keep it the same and say, “So what, we’re putting him in jail regardless”.
This will be done, it’s part of the dimocrats plan.
Many will state that Impeachment is a political process so therefore double jeopardy doesn't apply due to it now is a criminal process and a case can be made by referring to Federalist #69 where Hamilton speaks on an impeached and convicted (by the Senate) President being removed from office and tried criminally in the usual manner.
One of the issues that I have with stating that Impeachment is a solely a political process and that a President can be impeached for any reason flies in the face of the regular reading of the Constitution. It is for Treason, High Crimes and Misdemeanors. And no, misdemeanors doesn't mean bad behavior because at the time of the common usage in the legal sense it is a crime that is not a felony. The Constitution is a legal document.
Prof Dershowitz made a great point of stating that it is incredibly hard to impeach AND remove a sitting president even for Treason as you need 2/3 of the Senate to convict. This tells us that the framers were very concerned with the process being abused by politics. He also made the point on Bannon that individual states don't have the right to unilaterally ban someone from the ballot because they "beleive" the candidate committed some crime or whatnot.
I hold McConnell responsible for this.
I would think it’s because one is federal, the other is state. I’ve seen cases where the defendant was acquitted on state charges and the federal came in and charged them again.
Double jeopardy does not apply. An impeachment is not a criminal trial. Just like you can be tried criminally and sued civilly for the same acts, even if acquitted (think OJ Simpson), you can be impeached and tried criminally for the same acts, even if not convicted by the Senate and removed from office. Double jeopardy applies to jeopardy of criminal punishment. Even if convicted in an impeachment, there is no criminal penalty attached - only removal from office and possibly being barred from holding office again.
IANAL, but sounds reasonable.
Turtle and Pence, plus minority house leader at the time.
Exactly!!!
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“I’ve seen cases where the defendant was acquitted on state charges and the federal came in and charged them again.”
Not for the same charge though. For example, OJ Simpson was prosecuted and acquitted by the state for homicide, but prosecuted and convicted by the feds for depriving the victims of their civil rights, not for homicide (even though homicide was the means by which he deprived them of those rights).
Certainly that still smells a bit like “double jeopardy” but prosecutors are usually careful to give themselves that little wiggle room.
Maybe it applies, maybe it doesn’t. I’ll let the courts figure that out.
What is not in question at all is that Trump can claim Presidential immunity from prosecution for all the acts in the Georgia indictment.
Mental gymnastics
Nice try though...
Impeachment is a political act. It is used to removed a government official from their office. Usually because it is felt they committed a crime. An impeachment cannot fine or imprison anyone. They simply are removed from office.
In the cast of a President, Impeachment and removal would then open the person too prosecution for the alleged crime.
This is happening in Criminal Court.
The two sound the same and use similar processes. But...they have nothing to do with each other aside from clearing a path for prosecution of an executive.
The problem I see is we have 3100+ counties with DAs and 50 states with attorney generals all who could bring a case against a former president.
The National Constitutional Law Union says it is improper to prosecute Mr. Trump under these indictments, given that Bruen and Dobbs mandate that all constitutional provisions be applied in accordance with their fixed meaning in 1787-1789.
Todd J. Aldinger says the Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs and Bruen decisions allow for Trump and his lawyers to argue that all actions a president takes while in office must be considered legal unless the chief executive is successfully impeached and removed. Trump was impeached and acquitted twice.
Very nice. Bookmark.
In conclusion, Jack Smith’s claims are ill founded; to the extent they have any merit at all, they have already been prosecuted to the fullest extent the Constitution allows, and on each count, President Trump has already been acquitted of any and all criminal wrongdoing.
All criminal trials are subject to a constitutional provision which guarantees the accused a trial by a jury of his peers. An impeachment fails the jury requirement and cannot be considered a criminal trial, nor can its result be considered a criminal acquittal or conviction of a criminal offense.
An impeachment proceeding is quite analagous to a deportation proceeding in court before a judge. It does not feature a jury, but does not violate due process because it is in no way a criminal trial subjecting the accused to any criminal penalty.
Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 730 (1893)
The proceeding before a United States judge, as provided for in section 6 of the act of 1892, is in no proper sense a trial and sentence for a crime or offence. It is simply the ascertainment, by appropriate and lawful means, of the fact whether the conditions exist upon which Congress has enacted that an alien of this class may remain within the country. The order of deportation is not a punishment for crime. It is not a banishment, in the sense in which that word is often applied to the expulsion of a citizen from his country by way of punishment. It is but a method of enforcing the return to his own country of an alien who has not complied with the conditions upon the performance of which the government of the nation, acting within its constitutional authority and through the proper departments, has determined that his continuing to reside here shall depend. He has not, therefore, been deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, and the provisions of the Constitution, securing the right of trial by jury, and prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, and cruel and unusual punishments, have no application.
Charles L. Black, Jr., and Phillip Bobbit, Impeachment, A Handbook, New Edition, Yale University Press, 1974, 2018
Bobbitt at 119:
Unlike criminal proceedings, which are designed to treat all defendants alike regardless of their station, impeachment is not a criminal proceeding—that's why double jeopardy doesn't forbid the subsequent trial of an impeached official.
Charles L. Black, Jr. at 36:
Now this has been a long pull, but we have our hands on a good first approximation to a rational definition of an impeachable "high Crime or Misdemeanor." Omitting qualifications, and recognizing that the definition is only an approximation, I think we can say that "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," in the constitutional sense, ought to be held to be those offenses which are rather obviously wrong, whether or not "criminal," and which so seriously threaten the order of political society and to make pestilent and dangerous the continuance in power of their perpetrator. The fact that such an act is also criminal helps, even if it is not essential, because a general societal view of wrongness, and sometimes of seriousness, in such a case, publicly and authoritatively recorded.The phrase "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" carries another connotation—that of distinctness of offense. It seems that a charge of high crime or high misdemeanor ought to be a chare of a definite act or acts, each of which in itself satisfies the above requirements, General lowness and shabbinessought not to be enough. The people take some chances when they elect a man to the presidency, and I think this is one of them.
While on the topic of the relations between criminality and impeachability, let me remind the reader that the president, like everybody else, is generally bound by the criminal law. If something the has done is both a crime and an impeachable offense, then, by express constitutional provision, he may, after removal, be tried again in the ordinary courts, and punished; this provision was put in to avoid any possible plea of "double jeopardy."
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