Despite being nominated by former President Donald Trump in 2020, Justice Amy Coney Barrett has not consistently ruled in favor of Trump as many had expected.
For example, in a recent case regarding presidential immunity, Barrett generally agreed with the court’s ruling but strongly disagreed with the conservative-leaning majority on certain key points and instead sided with the liberal dissent.
Specifically, while she concurred with the majority that presidents are presumptively immune from prosecution for “official” acts, she broke ranks by advocating for allowing prosecutors to use those non-prosecutable official acts as evidence in support of criminal prosecution for unofficial acts, even if it might prejudice a jury.
This demonstrates Barrett’s independent approach to her judicial decisions.
SCOTUSblog stated that Chief Justice John Roberts, in the majority opinion, concluded that prosecutors cannot use official acts for which a president is immune as evidence to support prosecutable unofficial acts.\
Doing so, Roberts warned, “threatens to eviscerate the immunity we have recognized. It would permit a prosecutor to do indirectly what he cannot do directly — invite the jury to examine acts for which a President is immune from prosecution to nonetheless prove his liability on any charge.”
As expected, the court’s three liberal justices expressed their disagreement. In a dissent written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and supported by Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, they opposed the majority’s opinion on allowing prosecutors to use non-prosecutable official acts as evidence in the prosecution of unofficial acts.
This was just one of several points where they differed from the majority.
Justice Barrett, in a concurring opinion largely aligned with the majority but advocating for a narrower application of presidential immunity, revealed her agreement with her liberal colleagues regarding the use of a president’s official acts as evidence in a criminal prosecution.
Using bribery charges as a hypothetical example, she explained that “excluding from trial any mention of the official act connected to the bribe would hamstring the prosecution.
To make sense of charges alleging a quid pro quo, the jury must be allowed to hear about both the quid and the quo, even if the quo, standing alone, could not be a basis for the President’s criminal liability.”
And, while Barrett did acknowledge the majority’s concern that “allowing into evidence official acts for which the President cannot be held criminally liable may prejudice the jury,” she argued that the “familiar and time-tested procedure” of evidentiary rules and trial court processes would prove sufficient to avoid or limit the damage from “unfair prejudice” of jurors.
As reported by the left-leaning publication Salon, Justice Barrett broke away from the conservative majority and sided with her liberal counterparts in advocating for the potential criminal prosecution of former President Trump.
This was in response to his involvement in the “fake” or alternative slate of electors following the 2020 election.
In a footnote in her concurring opinion, Barrett looked at “the President’s alleged attempt to organize alternative slates of electors” and suggested that, “In my view, that conduct is private and therefore not entitled to protection.”
“The Constitution vests power to appoint Presidential electors in the States. And while Congress has a limited role in that process, the President has none,” she added. ” 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.”
Barrett also seemed to suggest that Trump’s alleged exertion of influence on state officials is prosecutable, as she wrote in her opinion, “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. 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 Comments
I just wrote last night in a news article about spoiled rotten, ungrateful and evil AOC the Marxist loving idiot, how she wants to go after the conservative SCOTUS judges that voted against the 3 liberals giving Trump substantial “Presidential Immunity.” This other commenter said even though Judge Barrett did the right thing in this case she was disappointed with Amy Comey Barrett overall for too often siding with the Left leaning side in too many decisions, but was happy she voted wise on this matter.
I saw this woman could and should be upset as I’ve been too and now after reading this, I’m more convinced that what I said to her (Katie, I do agree I’ve had a bad vibe about Amy and she surprised me more than a few times on her stance or judicial opinions; she is smart but I don’t know what is really going on with her and its worrisome!) is more probable now, how she is compromised or maybe worse!
She has become BAD NEWS! I hope I’m over reacting, but I don’t think so, something is not right with this picture!
BTW, its obviously the liberal left SCOTUS judges that should be gone after if anyone, they are obviously anti-American Marxist loving traitors!
Put that in your pipe AOC!