My Take | Special forces and presidential poisoning? US Supreme Court opinions read better than thrillers
- Far-reaching judgment granting near total immunity to presidents draws imaginative dissenting views from justices citing Seal Team 6 and fatal poisoning of US attorney general
In one of his many bestselling thrillers, The Pelican Brief, which was subsequently turned into a film starring Julia Roberts, John Grisham came up with an improbable plot that had a few US Supreme Court justices assassinated in a conspiracy.
Now, a few of the real justices are repaying in kind with some made-up scenarios in their latest opinions featuring elite special forces and presidential poisoning – as an example to “remove” a recalcitrant attorney general. I swear I am not making this up.
It shows some top judges in the United States have an active imagination that rivals or even betters that of Hollywood, and are not afraid to use it during their work that defines the ultimate legal reasoning across the land of the free.
The latest judgment by a supermajority of six conservative judges has granted near total immunity to the US president from criminal prosecution. Presidents are already free from any civil liability from a Supreme Court judgment in 1982.
To sum up, the president has absolute immunity from prosecution in his or her official conduct, that is in the performance of his or her duty. But Chief Justice John Roberts writes in the majority opinion that doesn’t mean the president is above the law. He or she is still subject to criminal charges in his or her “unofficial conduct”. However, the majority opinion offers little if any definition or standard of judgment on the latter.
