SCOTUS EX-POTUS IMMUNITY DAY
Final decision day of the current Supreme Court term. Absent a (preposterous) declaration dismissing the Special Counsel’s DC indictment outright, will the current conservative majority provide Donald Trump with a Melt-Clock “remand” off-ramp ruling sending his case back down for further lower venue proceedings, imposing an additional procedural delay that would principally serve to push the DC J6 Insurrection case out past the November 5th presidential election?
We should know shortly after 10 a.m. eastern time. Trump claims that his every act occurring during his time in office was an “official act” consequently shielded by blanket constitutional immunity from all subsequent judicial matters civil or criminal. In MedMal lingo, this would be known as permanent comprehensive “tail coverage.”
JULY 1 UPDATE
6-3 to remand to the DC trial court for bench-level determination (subsequently yet again appealable all the way back up to SCOTUS) of exactly what constitutes "unofficial acts" pertinent to the Trump J6 case. Essentially the Melt Clock Offramp ruling favorable to Trump.
119 page opinion (pdf). I spent the day reading all of it.
UPDATE
TRUMP v UNITED STATES 2024: JUSTICE BARRETT CONCURRING IN PART
…If the statute covers the alleged official conduct, the prosecution may proceed only if applying it in the circumstances poses no “‘dange[r] of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.’” Ante, at 14 (quoting Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731, 754 (1982)). On remand, the lower courts will have to apply that standard to various allegations involving the President’s official conduct. [2] Some of those allegations raise unsettled questions about the scope of Article II power, see ante, at 21–28, but others do not. For example, the indictment alleges that the President “asked the Arizona House Speaker to call the legislature into session to hold a hearing” about election fraud claims. App. 193. The President has no authority over state legislatures or their leadership, so it is hard to see how prosecuting him for crimes committed when dealing with the Arizona House Speaker would unconstitutionally intrude on executive power.
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[2] This analysis is unnecessary for allegations involving the President’s private conduct because the Constitution offers no protection from prosecution of acts taken in a private capacity. Ante, at 15. Sorting private from official conduct sometimes will be difficult—but not always. Take the President’s alleged attempt to organize alternative slates of electors. See, e.g., App. 208. In my view, that conduct is private and therefore not entitled to protection. See post, at 27–28 (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting). The Constitution vests power to appoint Presidential electors in the States. Art. II, §1, cl. 2; see also Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U. S. 578, 588–589 (2020). And while Congress has a limited role in that process, see Art. II, §1, cls. 3–4, the President has none. In short, a President has no legal authority—and thus no official capacity—to influence how the States appoint their electors. I see no plausible argument for barring prosecution of that alleged conduct.
Read & re-read that passage and footnote closely. Trump has
NO constitutional immunity for trying to overturn the 2020 election. It simply does not matter which of his subordinates he enlisted in his efforts. They wera
all "private acts."
UPDATE
"Perhaps you think Trump is exaggerating when he calls for a military tribunal to prosecute and execute the January 6th Committee members. Perhaps you think the idea of rounding up and punishing political opponents of Trump is some distant fantasy.
You could not be more wrong." - Rick Wilson
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OFF-TOPIC PERSONAL ERRATUM
July 1st is always a crappy day for me. On July 1, 1998, now 26 years distant,
my elder daughter Sissy, succumbed to cancer in L.A. in the wake of 26 months of Hell. She'd just turned 30. It will always seem like last week.
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