8

According to this article in the Guardian:

US Republican frontrunner Donald Trump is so confident in his support base that he said he could stand on New York’s Fifth Avenue “and shoot somebody” and still not lose voters.

Obviously this is a rhetorical flourish - as the journalist points out. Nevertheless I'm curious what would happen if a sitting president actually did something like this. What would happen? Would he first have to be impeached and then stand trial? Or would he stand trial straight-away. To be clear, the situation I'm envisaging is not an act of defence, but exactly as reported above: he takes a gun, walks into the street and shoots someone with no provocation. And with plenty of witnesses so the incident itself is in no doubt.

edit

This question is not a duplicate of the above. I'm not asking what would 'occur if a president was put into prison' but asking about how, constitutionally, would the US handle a serious crime alleged of a sitting President and where the crime alleged itself is not in doubt.

Its worth pointing out that the phrase 'high crimes and misdeneamours' according to this article in Wikipedia covers offences particular to the office and so is commensurate with the abuse of powers of that office. It doesn't, on the face of it, cover straight-forward crimes like this.

JJJ
  • 39,094
  • 10
  • 121
  • 182
Mozibur Ullah
  • 8,726
  • 1
  • 26
  • 45
  • I'm not voting to close yet as my vote would be binding – user4012 Sep 24 '18 at 18:12
  • @user4012: I just checked here. Nothing at all on the first page. Can you find it in the archives somewhere? Why would your vote be binding, btw? As far as I understand thats not how voting works... – Mozibur Ullah Sep 24 '18 at 18:12
  • 1
    If you have a gold tag badge you can close questions on that tag. – James K Sep 24 '18 at 18:43
  • 1
    @JamesK: Ok, thats good to know. The last sentence of that question touches similar ground - however the question is ambiguously phrased and the answers reflect that ambiguity. – Mozibur Ullah Sep 24 '18 at 18:49
  • 1
    Related question from Law.SE: https://law.stackexchange.com/q/17025/993 –  Sep 24 '18 at 19:46
  • @JeffLambert: Ok, thats what I was looking for. – Mozibur Ullah Sep 24 '18 at 19:49
  • 1
    It's not an exact duplicate of the cited question, but your question is duplicated as part of that question - "What would happen if a sitting United States president was put in prison? Could such a thing even happen? Would he be removed from office before this, or could he even be sentenced for anything?" – PoloHoleSet Sep 24 '18 at 22:30
  • Re "shot someone" & "crime": it isn't necessarily a crime to shoot someone; i.e. self-defense, defending from some clear and present public danger, etc. Please clarify whether the shooting is an actual crime, and if so what degree of crime. At present the Q. is vague as to if the shooting was fatal, and if not the degree of harm inflicted. – agc Sep 25 '18 at 15:31
  • @PoloHoleSet: I noted that sentence in my edit above. I'm specifically asking about what procedure is mandated by the constitution when a crime has been committed - as opposed to a 'high crimes and misdeneamours' which are essentially are about the abuse of office. – Mozibur Ullah Sep 25 '18 at 15:35
  • @agc: Did you note this sentence 'To be clear, the situation I'm envisaging is not an act of defence, but exactly as reported above: he takes a gun, walks into the street and shoots someone with no provocation' in the question? – Mozibur Ullah Sep 25 '18 at 15:36
  • @MoziburUllah, Thanks, I really did miss that, and yet that still doesn't quite nail it down. As stated, the random person might coincidentally be "Public Enemy #1", which fact a good defense lawyer would use. I'd suggest the premise be stated as: "POTUS stands on 5th Ave, and willfully shoots and murders an innocent." – agc Sep 25 '18 at 15:44
  • I'm just noting that the series of questions that I bolded do ask exactly that. A related question would be whether the process was addressed in the answers to that question, which I have not reviewed. You should note that impeachment from office is not, itself, a criminal procedure, so, even if there are accepted restrictions on the ability to charge a President while in office, those would not restrict charges and/or convictions after they leave office, and double-jeopardy for criminal charges would not come into play because of an impeachment. – PoloHoleSet Sep 25 '18 at 17:34

1 Answers1

7

The Secret Service would rush in and secure the perimeter to make sure the President is safe, then he'd likely be taken back to the White House for a spin session to get all major (alive) parties' stories straight and figure out a strategy for moving forward.

There is no specific mechanism for the President to be tried or convicted of a crime, and the Founders did not imagine a situation in which the Congress would fail to be a check on the Executive branch. As such, the only Constitutional solution we have available is impeachment. However, this process would take weeks if not months, and none would dare jail a sitting President. In the short term, he'd be advised to hunker down in the White House in fear of attempted reprisal killings.

Then the pundits would begin to pick apart the background of the victim, finding any bad thing that he or she had done in their life that would justify their death. They would then begin the process of lionizing Trump for his willingness to get down in the dirt 'with the people' to help deal with this eminent threat. Panels of Southwesterners would be brought in to remind everyone that frontier justice was common in the Southwest until recently and people who knew the victim and have a grudge against him/her will be invited on TV to smear his/her good name.

By the end of the week, Congress will be waffling whether or not to impeach him at all. It would likely come down to whether the base believes the spin or not.

Carduus
  • 17,257
  • 3
  • 51
  • 71
  • 6
    I think this answer could be greatly improved by clarifying what the constitution says exactly on presidential immunity (or clarify there is no such thing in the constitution), and by removing the allegations US conservatives would defend a murder no matter what (which, I think, is quite serious allegation, and thus far without evidence; even though I am hardly a fan of the GOP, I would hope they are above that). –  Sep 24 '18 at 20:07
  • 1
    I've read through my answer several times and other than the mention of a panel of Conservative Southwesterners (a flourish, I admit), I do not mention party or political viewpoint of the actors involved. – Carduus Sep 24 '18 at 20:13
  • Re "...There is no specific mechanism for the President to be tried or convicted of a crime...": please clarify why there should be such a mechanism. All US elected officials are citizens, therefore the laws of the US apply to them as well. For example, suppose the POTUS sneaks away one night, (the Secret Service think he's still in bed), disguises himself with a fake mustache, has a few beers, drives home and gets a speeding ticket. It's hardly an impeachable offense, but he'd still have to pay the ticket. – agc Sep 25 '18 at 15:24
  • Because in the system our Founders were cribbing from (the English Parliamentary system), impeachment was supposed to be more flexible than mere indictment of a documented crime. Doing something as mundane as embezzling funds could land a Parliamentarian jail time, or even execution. But then came Associate Justice Joseph Story, who ruled: – Carduus Sep 25 '18 at 15:34
  • 2
    “There are . . . incidental powers belonging to the executive department which are necessarily implied from the nature of the functions which are confided to it. Among these must necessarily be included the power to perform them. . . . The president cannot, therefore, be liable to arrest, imprisonment, or detention, while he is in the discharge of the duties of his office, and, for this purpose, his person must be deemed, in civil cases at least, to possess an official inviolability.” --Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1563, pp. 418-419 (1st ed. 1833). – Carduus Sep 25 '18 at 15:34