Timeline for Can the US president legally kill at will?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 6 at 11:59 | comment | added | Jason Patterson | @Machavity Yes, it would be an illegal order, but that's the point. You don't need immunity for legal actions. And yes, Biden could have executed Trump, that's the other point. | |
| Jul 6 at 1:42 | comment | added | Machavity | @JasonPatterson And that order would be 100% illegal. Moreover, if that were really the net result of the ruling, Joe Biden could have had executed Donald Trump by now. Remember, the ruling leaves open for a President to merely argue that some action was a core power. It does not automatically make everything legal. | |
| Jul 5 at 23:52 | comment | added | Jason Patterson | One of the specific core powers enumerated in the ruling is commanding the military. Regarding the Seal Team 6 objection, that is 100% the President commanding the military, so they would be absolutely immune from civil or criminal penalties. They could still be impeached if in office, but face no consequences beyond that. | |
| Jul 5 at 18:19 | comment | added | Brian Lacy | The majority by this ruling actually makes possible (and more likely) the very concern which by this ruling they hope to avoid -- that Presidents in office may unethically target former Presidents -- and adds to it the possibility of targeting future rivals as well. The Court is in effect saying, Presidents may not prosecute their predecessors, but they may bring harm or threat of harm to any rival outside of the judicial process, legally or illegally, so long as they can make an official case for doing so -- in which case even any evidence to the contrary is inadmissible. | |
| Jul 5 at 15:50 | comment | added | Abion47 | -1. Far from torpedoing the dissenting opinion, the final quote affirms it. A major part of the separation of powers is the concept of checks and balances, and this decision sets precedent that the President would be immune to the majority of checks and balances the other two branches of government have. Now any reprehensible action the President takes that is even slightly related to their official duties is prohibitively difficult if not impossible to hold accountable, and ordering a drone strike or an FBI hit on a political rival is well within the scope of an "official act". | |
| Jul 5 at 12:27 | comment | added | TheEvilMetal | Something is off about the last quote here. Presidents have not had this level of immunity before and there's relatively few criminal charges against former presidents. So why suggest that former presidents would be bombarded by criminal charges? It's not happened so far. The fears about immunity causing more presidential crimes do not have an equivalent track record to prove or disprove the idea. But not having immunity clearly does not pose the threat that they suggest. Or it would be easy to see all of the existing criminal charges on former presidents who didn't have this level of immunity | |
| Jul 5 at 6:30 | comment | added | phoog | "something long established by Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon": that established nothing. The president doesn't have to confirm that charges are possible before pardoning someone. | |
| Jul 4 at 15:49 | comment | added | Syed M. Sannan | This, imho, is a much more detailed and reasonable answer than the top-voted one. The top-voted one just affirms to what the question asks without providing much details. | |
| Jul 4 at 14:14 | comment | added | user102008 | "Moreover, the people who would have to carry out such orders would not share in any immunity claims." True, but the President can also promise to pardon them if it's a federal crime, and if pardoned they would have immunity. | |
| Jul 4 at 13:58 | comment | added | Yakk | Exactly how can you argue that giving an order to the US armed forces not a "core power" of the president? Remember, the illegality of the communicated information doesn't change things under the majority opinion. | |
| Jul 4 at 5:07 | comment | added | zibadawa timmy | The court not immediately throwing out all of the indictments only says at most two things: (1) they haven't gone completely insane and know the standard and wholly unremarkable, implication-free procedure here is to remand with new instructions, even if they are already convinced their instructions lead only to one conclusion; (2) they're just helping Trump stall for time, as now it will take months for the courts to come to a decision on this, then many more months for appellate courts, before eventually SCOTUS tells them the correct answer. | |
| Jul 3 at 17:22 | comment | added | Dan M. | "it's unlikely a Federal court would" Why is it unlikely? Considering the president appoints those judges and with enough "gratuity" anything is possible. | |
| Jul 3 at 17:01 | comment | added | bharring | Worse, a president firing a subordinate for not breaking the law would be immune. He can fire the AG until one agrees to assassinate his rival. And we can't even consider his motivations. | |
| Jul 3 at 16:50 | comment | added | I Funball | -1. The judicial branch not adhering to it's own decision does not "torpedo Sotomayor's dissent", that's paradoxical. As ruled this week, the president has absolute immunity for official acts and assumed immunity for the "outer limit" of his duties. It's a big stretch to declare deploying Seal Team 6 as commander in chief, not an official act, while deploying the justice department in any way you see fit, is. | |
| Jul 3 at 16:36 | comment | added | time takes its toll | I rather disagree with this reasoning. Roberts put almost any kind of talk by the president to the underlings (e.g. those in the DOJ) as an official act. So, POTUS telling Seal Team 6 to do this or that is very similar. | |
| Jul 3 at 15:45 | comment | added | Lag | "Moreover, the people who would have to carry out such orders would not share in any immunity claims." - the President can pardon federal crimes. Trump has pardoned actual killers (four Blackwater military contractors convicted, one of first-degree murder, for their involvement in the Nisour Square massacre). | |
| Jul 3 at 14:52 | comment | added | Barmar | Even though the hush money payments took place before Trump was President, there's now a decent chance this conviction will be overturned because some of the evidence came from official acts (such as his tweets, which he used as an official communication method) that took place while he was President, and the ruling says that these can't be used as evidence. | |
| Jul 3 at 14:23 | history | answered | Machavity | CC BY-SA 4.0 |