No catch-22.
“Admissibility” refers to what the jury can hear, not the judge. The judge gets to hear about the act, and rule on it. If he rules it official, the jury never heard about it. If he rules it unofficial, the prosecutor is free to present it as evidence at trial.
You just have to convince a judge that the act was outside of his official duties.
Correct. That’s all you have to do.
and by the way, the evidence that the act was outside of his official duties is not admissible in court.
Correct. If the judge rules the act was official, it cannot be used as evidence at trial. On the other hand, when the judge rules it is not an official act, it is admissible. So again, you just have to convince the judge it wasn’t an official act.
What crime is Trump accused of where the only evidence of criminality is an official act? Answer: none. Not one.
he can appeal the ruling. All the way back to the Supreme Court.
You are not actually suggesting that an accused criminal should not have access to an appeals process, so that criticism is invalid.
A dozen armed people attract cops.
A couple hundred armed people repel cops.
Package the leftovers into “meals” (perhaps “family meals”). Have your people order those “meals” through Doordash.
Your people can then (optionally) sign into their Dasher accounts to make those deliveries.
He is only immune from acts that fall within his job description. If you want to criminally charge the president for one of his actions, you will have to convince a judge that the act was outside his job description.
SCOTUS didn’t grant his immunity requests. They sent the case back to the trial court and told them ale sure you specify that this action was outside the scope of his official duties before you make your ruling".
That’s it. SCOTUS didn’t do him any favors.
Women have enough problems with unwanted male interaction, not to mention so many lies about women’s anatomy. This makes it so much worse.
In this hypothetical, men switch from having a sexual interest in women 52/52 weeks a year to 4/52 weeks a year. I would expect a >92% reduction in “unwanted male interaction”.
The president is immune for any act he is authorized to perform: an “official” act. Any act he is not authorized to perform is an “unofficial” act. The immunity ruling doesn’t even slow down the criminal prosecutions against him. It’s not even a speed bump.
Everyone seems to forget Trump’s argument was that he was absolutely immune to all criminal prosecution for anything unless he was impeached for it first. SCOTUS rejected that argument outright, and opened the door for courts to declare his actions “unofficial”.
He’s doing exactly what he should be doing right now, acting like he’s going to be the one running.
Sometime between August 12th and 19th is when he needs to withdraw, for health reasons. The week before the Democratic National Convention. Dropping out a few days before the convention turns it from a pro forma circle jerk into a media frenzy, energizing the base less than 3 months from the election.
They are getting banned from public spaces any time they bring them up. So instead of learning why they are wrong, they are instead sent off to find similarly delusional people. Censoring (moderating) feeds the echo chamber.
No, those delusions should be rebutted, so that when others arrive at a similar hypothesis, they learn where they went wrong.
Freedom of speech is also a principle. Generally speaking, the operator of a forum should strongly value that principle, and refuse to censor any natural person’s speech.
You are correct that an individual’s right of free speech isn’t infringed by by private censorship. The right to free speech is infringed by incarceration or other official sanctions. You absolutely should have the right to free speech on that private platform, as you should not be jailed for your statements made on it.
Note: not all forms of expression qualify as speech. CP and death threats, for example, are forms of violence, not forms of speech.
Tell me you didn’t watch the debate without telling me you didn’t watch the debate.
Biden isn’t going to win. The Republicans are mad as hell, and the Democrats are bored.
What we need is Trump spending the next 5 weeks telling us how old and senile Biden is, how bad an old, senile president will be. And then we tag in a 40-something candidate, making Trump the only geriatric left on the ballot.
A random Millennial could run on an “Ok, Boomer” platform and beat Trump.
The choice doesn’t have to be between the narcissist and the potato.
In about 6 weeks, the Democratic National Convention will be held in Chicago. With a democratic incumbent, that’s a boring little party that the entire nation ignores. But, if Biden drops out of the race in about 5 weeks, that convention turns into a media circus, and the entire base has a fresh new candidate winning the news cycles.
I’ll take the entrails of a priest.
like if I shoot someone in self defense, I have to prove there was a threat to my person instead of me not liking their hat.
No, you don’t. The last state to place the burden of proof on you for defending yourself was Ohio, but they repealed their unconstitutional “Affirmative Defense” requirement in 2019. In every state, the burden is on the prosecutor to prove that your actions were not defensive, not yours to prove they were.
Likewise, it is the prosecutor’s burden to prove he was fraudulently “convinced”.
They absolutely can question intent. They just can’t use an “official act” as evidence of intent. They can use all the “unofficial acts” they want to demonstrate intent. And, once they decide that the bribe was an unofficial act, the door is opened to use it for intent as well.
Take conspiracy for example. The elements of conspiracy are:
Two or more people agreed to commit a crime
All conspirators had the specific intent to commit the crime
At least one of the conspirators committed an overt act
Trump conspires with false electors to rig the election. Trump’s is immune to charges stemming from his conversation with Pence, but he is not immune to charges of conspiring with false electors. His communication with Pence cannot be considered evidence of intent (#2), But it can be the overt act (#3) of the conspiracy.
You reversed the burden of proof. In a criminal case, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty. It is the prosecutor - not the accused president - who has to do the proving.
That is a nonsensical position. Perhaps a judge determines they are not capable, and recuses themselves or otherwise resigns from the case: the case is reassigned to another judge. But any nitwit can make some sort of decision and support it with some sort of rationale.
The trial court judge cannot “send it up the courts”. They render a decision, and one of the litigants - not the judge - petitions the appellate court, arguing that the trial court’s rationale was wrong.
That is, and always has been, a risk in the judicial system established by our constitution. The checks and balances the legislative and judicial branch have against the court are few and weak.
At best, If SCOTUS engages in such shenanigans, such shenanigans will be engaged against SCOTUS: court packing, etc. Ultimately, though, the only real limit on the court is the willingness of We The People to accept its decisions.
Personally, and this is off on a tangent, I think we are due for a fundamental change to the way we empanel the courts, to reduce the politicization of the court. Instead of fixing the size of the court at 9, I think we should ignore the size of the court entirely, and just appoint one new, life-term justice in the first and third year of each presidential term. Any justice who dies or resigns is not replaced. The courts composition shifts on a slow, but steady pace. It does not stagnate due to justices timing their retirements for when a favorable replacement can be made. Nor does it lurch wildly when a justice gets that timing wrong and dies with the wrong party in the white house.
Further, I would adjust the confirmation process. If the president nominates a candidate who has been previously confirmed to a circuit court, no additional confirmation is required. The president thus has a small pool of qualified candidates he can elevate to the court directly, without needing to involve a hostile Senate.