The President of the United States of America. The Leader of the Free World. This person conjures up an image of the most powerful person in the world, steering the direction of the United States. But how powerful is the President? At various points in history there have arisen times where the Supreme Court has scrutinized his actions, trying to determine the constitutionality of them. The two topics that seemed to come up the most are based on two different subjects. The first is the presidential power of immunity. The President being who he is, at some points it would seem necessary that he be protected from the judicial system so that the separations of powers might not be tipped to one side. The Supreme Court argues against this, saying that the President, while important, does not get special privileges that other citizens do not have. The other issue has been focused around the president’s power to withdraw the writ of habeas corpus. At some points in history it has seemed that the president has withdrawn the right of a fair trail by jury from people he has demeaned enemy combatants, or people who has directly fought against the United States. It is important that the issue be resolved as to who is allowed to fall under this definition and how they will be handled. Over the course of history these questions have arisen and been dealt with by a series of Supreme Court decisions, mainly through five key trials.
The first question that will be examined is the extent of the President’s immunity. The first trial where this was presented was the presented during the Watergate Scandal of 1972. In this incident 7 burglars broke into the Watergate hotel to steal confidential documents from the Democratic Party. It was not until 1974 that this case was brought up against the President of the United States at the time, which was President Richard Nixon. On March 1, 1974 a grand jury charged various persons with a litany of offenses, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and to obstruct justice. It was at this grand jury where President Nixon was named as an unindicted coconspirator. A subpoena was issued that required the production of a number of tapes, memos, transcripts, papers, and other writings that related to the incident. The President then handed the edited versions of the transcripts over to the courts. This would not suffice and an unedited version of the transcripts was demanded. The President then tried to expunge the grand juries decision that he was a coconspirator, using the argument that the
Court lacked jurisdiction to issue the subpoena, due to the matter being an inter-branch dispute between a subordinate and superior officer of the Executive Branch and not subject to judicial resolution and that the federal courts should not intruding into areas committed to other branches of government. The Court was able to deny this on the bases that the jusiticiability of the claim “does not depend on such a surface inquiry….”
The President then tried to use the ideal of a “formal claim of privilege” and that it would be both dangerous and unnecessary to reveal the confidentiality of his communications. It was stressed that it was extremely important that the conversations between the President and the people that advises him be confidential as to protect national security. The Courts thought differently, deciding that neither of these reasons were enough to give the President absolute privilege from immunity from the judicial process. It was the Court’s unanimous decision that the tapes that President Nixon was protecting under the claims of a executive privilege were imperative to the case at hand and that by him not turning them over that it would prevent the due process of law and “gravely impair the basic function of the courts”. The Supreme Court held that no person, from the average citizen to the President of the United States, is above the law and cannot use special privileges, such as executive privileges, to try to rise themselves above it. Not even the President is allowed to bypass the system in which he is employed to protect.
The second trial where the issue of Presidential immunity arose was in 1997 in William Jefferson Clinton v. Paula Corbin Jones. In this case, Jones was working in Little Rock, Arkansas for the Governor Clinton. The Governor was giving a speech at the Excelsior Hotel as Jones manned the reception desk. At that point Danny Ferguson, a former Arkansas State Police officer, persuaded her to leave the desk and go up to the Governor’s suite, where he made “abhorrent” sexual advances at her, which she refused. After the incident she was treated in a “hostile and rude manner” for her rejecting the Governor’s advances. Later, after Clinton was elected President, Ferguson stated that she accepted the advances, while the President called her a liar, saying that she made up the incident.
Jones was suing the President on four counts. The first is that the Governor deprived her of her Constitutional rights; secondly, he and Ferguson violated her federal rights. The third count is based on emotional distress, while the last is based upon defamation for the President calling her a liar.
One thing to draw from this case is that the President conducted these actions before he was elected.
In the District Court the President used the claim that he should “file a motion to dismiss on grounds of Presidential immunity, requested the court to defer all other pleadings and motions until the immunity issue was resoled.” The questions that were being resolved were based on the issue of whether the President is granted temporary immunity for action committed before he was elected. The President argued for this, stating that a trial would defer him from his presidential responsibilities and that it could tip the separation of powers.
The Court recognized this but stated “he is otherwise subject to the laws for his purely private acts.” This means that while the President is immune to judicial trail because of action he committed in the line of duty, unofficial actions that he commits are to be held accountable to the law. For the issue on whether it will impede his ability to do his job and that is will cause a rift in the separation of powers, the Supreme Court states that these will not be problems. So far in the over 200 years of this nations history Presidents have been tried only 3 times. The likelihood of this happening again is slim, at most. And it would be extremely hard for anyone to present a case to assault the Executive branch via the Judicial Branch, because those cases would be eliminated in the lower courts.
The other issue of Presidential power is whether or not he has the right to suspend habeas corpus for citizens of the United States. The first example of this is the case of Ex Parte Milligan. Union forces captured Milligan in an attempt to set POWs free held inside a Union camp and fight Union forces in the area. He was a resident of Indian for 22 years, and was never in the military. Upon his capture he was tired by military tribune and sentenced to be hanged. He appealed this decision under that claim that he was not giving a trail by jury that his rights guarantee him. The overall issue that the Supreme Court was resolving was whether a military tribunal could try a civilian when the civilian courts are open and functioning.
Because Milligan was not a combatant, did not live in a rebel state, nor was a POW himself, it is up to debate whether he should be tried as if he were part of the military or as a civilian.
The Supreme Court eventually decided that Milligan could not be tried by military tribunal in a state that had an active and functioning court in place.
The second case where this issue was brought forth occurred in 1942 with Ex Parte Quirin, in which 8 German spies landed on the East Coast (New York and Florida) with the mission to destroy war facilities. They were apprehended by the FBI, and tried by military tribunal. The prisoners stated that the President hand no constitutional right to try them via military tribunal because they were civilians, not soldiers, of Germany (one was an American citizen, the rest were German citizens). This did not fly because the men were acting for an enemy government with intent to commit hostile actions against the United States. This made them enemy combatants, even if they were civilians. The overall court decision was that, even if you were an American citizen, if you were acting in a way hostile to the government in power and committing actions to harm it, you are designated an enemy combatant.
The third and final case (so far) concerning this issue was between Yaser Esam Hamdi v. Donald H. Rumsfeld. The petitioner, Hamdi, was an American citizen who moved from his home in Louisiana to Saudi Arabia as a child. In 2001 he was captured by Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan and the turned over to American forces. Hamdi was captured while engaging Northern Alliance soldiers along with other Taliban fighters. Because he was captured and being held as an enemy combatant it would be customary for him to remain POW till the end of the war. This is to stop the released soldiers to return to the battlefield and continue fighting. But the unconventional nature of the Global War on Terror means that the war might not be over for a few generation. There seems to be no way to ensure that terror can be defeated the same way as a nation can. So, this calls into question as to whether the United States can hold an enemy combatant that was also a citizen of the United States. In the end, the Supreme Court ruled that the executive did not have the power to detain a citizen with out due process of the law. Dissent for this ruling was based on the thought that the AUMF would allow the Executive to hold enemy combatants indefinitely. The “Authorization for Use of Military Force” (AUMF) authority allowed the President to use “All necessary and appropriate force” to defend the nation from those involved with the 9/11 attacks, but whether or not it could be used against a citizen of the US was the question. This has since been clarified, meaning that U.S. citizens that were identified as enemy combatants have the right to due process.
The President of the United States of America is seen as the most powerful man in the world, but in reality it seems that he is subject to the same laws that the rest of citizens of this country are subject to. It is his job to serve the people and protect the Constitution of the United States. This, however, does not mean that he is above the law. If he were above the law in which he were elected to protect and administer, then what is the point of having a President at all?
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