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Is anyone else highly concerned with the SCOTUS ruling that the POTUS is immune from criminal liability? (lemmy.autism.place)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by [email protected] to c/asklemmy

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Sorry if this is not the proper community for this question. Please let me know if I should post this question elsewhere.

So like, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic or jump on some conspiracy theory crap, but this seems like very troubling news to me. My entire life, I've been under the impression that no one is technically/officially above the law in the US, especially the president. I thought that was a hard consensus among Americans regardless of party. Now, SCOTUS just made the POTUS immune to criminal liability.

The president can personally violate any law without legal consequences. They also already have the ability to pardon anyone else for federal violations. The POTUS can literally threaten anyone now. They can assassinate anyone. They can order anyone to assassinate anyone, then pardon them. It may even grant complete immunity from state laws because if anyone tries to hold the POTUS accountable, then they can be assassinated too. This is some Putin-level dictator stuff.

I feel like this is unbelievable and acknowledge that I may be wayyy off. Am I misunderstanding something?? Do I need to calm down?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Doesn't the ruling say that if the president takes a bribe to give someone an official appointment, that the person was appointed is not admissable as evidence in court?

That's both new, and stupid. But what Roberts wrote in the majority ruling.

Edit: It also states that Trump putting pressure on Pence to change the election results may or may not be an official act, and whether it can be prosecuted is unclear (and whether it can be discussed in law needs an investigation and a ruling, rather than deciding it in a court of law).

Edit II: Romer below said it all far better than me. https://lemmy.autism.place/comment/224475

[–] grandkaiser -2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

This is exactly why i'm asking people to read the ruling that I linked for your convenience It doesn't even talk about bribery. At all. People are just saying things without doing any effort to source/reference/research what they're talking about.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

You're right, the bribery talk is the logical extrapolation of the ruling that is laid out in the dissenting opinion. (and also in a minor dissent from one of the 6 judges who made the ruling.)

Edit: and unfortunately I live in a place where the US supreme Court website does not allow access so I can't read the conveniently shared link. I have tried to find it online and read as much of it as I can. I would like to read the full thing, maybe you could share the image on a Lemmy instance and link to that? You could do the same with the dissenting opinion, too, for completion's sake.

What I can find from the reports and snippets I can find is that the ruling that Roberts wrote talks about not only immunity for official acts, but not using official acts as evidence for prosecuting a US president. This then becomes the talk of bribery as making an appointment is very much an official act, and where that one conservative justice breaks line with the other five, as she maintains that official acts should be eligible as evidence when prosecuting unofficial acts.