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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA Supreme Court Case Could Liberate Trump to Pardon His Associates (The Atlantic)
Article from Natasha Bertrand at The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/09/trump-pardon-orrin-hatch-supreme-court/571285/
A key Republican senator has quietly weighed in on an upcoming Supreme Court case that could have important consequences for Special Counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation.
The Utah lawmaker Orrin Hatch, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, filed a 44-page amicus brief earlier this month in Gamble v. United States, a case that will consider whether the dual-sovereignty doctrine should be put to rest. The 150-year-old exception to the Fifth Amendments double-jeopardy clause allows state and federal courts to prosecute the same person for the same criminal offense. According to the brief he filed on September 11, Hatch believes the doctrine should be overturned. The extensive federalization of criminal law has rendered ineffective the federalist underpinnings of the dual sovereignty doctrine, his brief reads. And its persistence impairs full realization of the Double Jeopardy Clauses liberty protections.
Within the context of the Mueller probe, legal observers have seen the dual-sovereignty doctrine as a check on President Donald Trumps power: It could discourage him from trying to shut down the Mueller investigation or pardon anyone caught up in the probe, because the pardon wouldnt be applied to state charges. Under settled law, if Trump were to pardon his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, for examplehe was convicted last month in federal court on eight counts of tax and bank fraudboth New York and Virginia state prosecutors could still charge him for any crimes that violated their respective laws. (Both states have a double-jeopardy law that bars secondary state prosecutions for committing the same act, but there are important exceptions, as the Fordham University School of Law professor Jed Shugerman has noted.) If the dual-sovereignty doctrine were tossed, as Hatch wants, then Trumps pardon could theoretically protect Manafort from state action.
If Trump were to shut down the investigation or pardon his associates, the escape hatch, then, is for cases to be farmed out or picked up by state-level attorneys general, who cannot be shut down by Trump and who generallybut with some existing limitscan charge state crimes even after a federal pardon, explained Elie Honig, a former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey. If Hatch gets his way, however, a federal pardon would essentially block a subsequent state-level prosecution.
-snip-
The Utah lawmaker Orrin Hatch, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, filed a 44-page amicus brief earlier this month in Gamble v. United States, a case that will consider whether the dual-sovereignty doctrine should be put to rest. The 150-year-old exception to the Fifth Amendments double-jeopardy clause allows state and federal courts to prosecute the same person for the same criminal offense. According to the brief he filed on September 11, Hatch believes the doctrine should be overturned. The extensive federalization of criminal law has rendered ineffective the federalist underpinnings of the dual sovereignty doctrine, his brief reads. And its persistence impairs full realization of the Double Jeopardy Clauses liberty protections.
Within the context of the Mueller probe, legal observers have seen the dual-sovereignty doctrine as a check on President Donald Trumps power: It could discourage him from trying to shut down the Mueller investigation or pardon anyone caught up in the probe, because the pardon wouldnt be applied to state charges. Under settled law, if Trump were to pardon his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, for examplehe was convicted last month in federal court on eight counts of tax and bank fraudboth New York and Virginia state prosecutors could still charge him for any crimes that violated their respective laws. (Both states have a double-jeopardy law that bars secondary state prosecutions for committing the same act, but there are important exceptions, as the Fordham University School of Law professor Jed Shugerman has noted.) If the dual-sovereignty doctrine were tossed, as Hatch wants, then Trumps pardon could theoretically protect Manafort from state action.
If Trump were to shut down the investigation or pardon his associates, the escape hatch, then, is for cases to be farmed out or picked up by state-level attorneys general, who cannot be shut down by Trump and who generallybut with some existing limitscan charge state crimes even after a federal pardon, explained Elie Honig, a former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey. If Hatch gets his way, however, a federal pardon would essentially block a subsequent state-level prosecution.
-snip-
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A Supreme Court Case Could Liberate Trump to Pardon His Associates (The Atlantic) (Original Post)
highplainsdem
Sep 2018
OP
eleny
(46,166 posts)1. And help him achieve the lifetime presidency he no doubt dreams of
Separation
(1,975 posts)2. If ya get one more Supreme Court replaced by Trump after Kavanaugh
It pretty much won't matter what anyone thinks.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)3. A Democratic Party winner of the presidency 2020
Beware RWers in the Supreme Court. One reason why they are pushing so hard trying to get Brett K in.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)4. This is what is really behind this
Kavenah Appointment. Nothing more and nothing less. Protects Trump and his Crime Family from State Jurisdiction from charging him for any Federal Crimes he might Pardon himself from.