Posted by dahsdebater on 3/11/2019 12:16:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 3/11/2019 11:53:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 3/11/2019 11:04:00 AM (view original):
Fortunately for literally everyone living and working in the United States, we have laws making it illegal to fire people for alleged criminal activity that cannot be proven in court. They're difficult to enforce. But at least in theory, someone accusing us of something that can't be proven in a court of law is not enough to deny employment. You know, to protect people from baseless accusations as a means of getting out of contracts, etc.

I don’t think this is actually true. For example, a board of directors can remove a CEO when he’s been accused of sexual harassment before it’s been proven in court. Credible allegations of criminal activity are enough to cost you your job.

If those persons have contracts the employers are still liable for remaining pay, or to negotiate a mutually-agreeable buyout. If employment is at-will then this wouldn't apply. But POTUS is clearly under an established term contract.

A term in the contract is that he can be removed by impeachment. There is no specified requirement for impeachment.

Posted by dahsdebater on 3/11/2019 12:12:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 3/11/2019 11:56:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 3/11/2019 11:14:00 AM (view original):
To be clear - as of this moment, there are probably sufficient grounds for impeachment. But conviction in theory requires the same burden of evidence as conviction in a criminal court. Certainly no publicly-available evidence supports that burden. So as of right now, regardless of BL's personal opinions, I don't see a legally justifiable path to Trump "losing the most powerful and prestigious job in the world." That may or may not remain true once the Mueller report is filed.

Impeachment is a political process, not criminal court. There is no burden of evidence. Just what the House decides to do.

The Senate trial after impeachment is also a political process. The constitution does not specify the burden of proof required for conviction.

This is not correct. It's supposed to be a criminal and not a political process. Process of impeachment isn't spelled out at all in the Constitution because it was sufficiently standardized under Common Law.

No, it isn’t criminal. It’s purposely not a criminal process. Impeached and convicted officials cannot be sent to prison without an additional criminal trial. Impeachment is a political process.

Again, this is because it was based on English Common Law.

If you look again, you'll find that the Constitution also doesn't guarantee that criminal cases in courtrooms find the accused guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt." Those words don't appear anywhere in the document. But they were universally understood by the Founding Fathers because they were firmly established under Common Law. The Constitution also doesn't specify that the lower chamber of Congress would be the one to levy charges and the upper chamber would conduct the trial. This was also simply assumed from Common Law.

FWIW, the Constitution says nothing about presumption of innocence until guilt has been proven. It was assumed by the framers that the basic tenets of Common Law would continue to hold sway because, generally, virtually everyone thought the system worked fairly well.

None of that changes the fact that impeachment is not a criminal proceeding.

From the NYT:

The Constitution allows for the impeachment and removal of a president for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” But no controlling authority serves as a check on how lawmakers choose to interpret that standard, which makes it as much a question of political will as of legal analysis.

A lot of people in the US are unfamiliar with Common Law. The fact that they write for a newspaper doesn't make them any less ignorant.

If you want to call impeachment a political process because it can't send anybody to prison, fine. That's a semantic argument. The intent is still for it to be a process by which an individual may be convicted of a crime by the same standard assumed within the criminal justice system. For all intents and purposes, that looks very much like a criminal proceeding.

he was trying even after he was elected to build a hotel in moscow. though he said he wasn't

luckily for the president, the deal fell apart for lack of financing

you can't really launder stolen russian money in russia

oligarchs want to finance trump towers anywhere but russia

so he conspired to bust the emoluments clause but alas another business setback for The Don

my question is what were the quid pro quos

did he throw the country under the bus to curry favor to putin

there is no doubt he wants to be buds with strongmen

its weak and disgusting and unpatriotic

Posted by dahsdebater on 3/11/2019 12:43:00 PM (view original):
A lot of people in the US are unfamiliar with Common Law. The fact that they write for a newspaper doesn't make them any less ignorant.

If you want to call impeachment a political process because it can't send anybody to prison, fine. That's a semantic argument. The intent is still for it to be a process by which an individual may be convicted of a crime by the same standard assumed within the criminal justice system. For all intents and purposes, that looks very much like a criminal proceeding.

It’s not semantics. It’s a clear delineation between the presidential impeachment process and criminal court.

The Senate decides what evidence it wants to hear, who will testify, and how long the trial will run. There is no apeals process and the result of a conviction is a lost job.

In what criminal court does the jury set the rules and decide what evidence it hears?

What does any of that have to do with burden of proof? In case you had somehow forgotten, that is what's really at question here.

Posted by bad_luck on 3/11/2019 11:56:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 3/11/2019 11:14:00 AM (view original):
To be clear - as of this moment, there are probably sufficient grounds for impeachment. But conviction in theory requires the same burden of evidence as conviction in a criminal court. Certainly no publicly-available evidence supports that burden. So as of right now, regardless of BL's personal opinions, I don't see a legally justifiable path to Trump "losing the most powerful and prestigious job in the world." That may or may not remain true once the Mueller report is filed.

Impeachment is a political process, not criminal court. There is no burden of evidence. Just what the House decides to do.

The Senate trial after impeachment is also a political process. The constitution does not specify the burden of proof required for conviction.

This was the initial question.

And now you're citing procedural aspects of impeachment proceedings, also derived from Common Law, as evidence that we can ignore the burden of proof as inherited from that same Common Law?

nixon resigned because he feared he dint have the votes in the senate

clinton fought because he knew he had the votes

unless mueller or someone comes up with some stronger dirt (or trump does something really stupid), trump has the votes

Posted by dahsdebater on 3/11/2019 12:57:00 PM (view original):
What does any of that have to do with burden of proof? In case you had somehow forgotten, that is what's really at question here.

If it isn’t a criminal trial, the burden of proof isn’t “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

The purpose of the high burden is to be as sure as possible that someone is guilty before taking away their freedom.

There is no risk of loss of freedom in an impeachment trial.

uh-oh, spaghettio. I sense a long one coming........

Posted by dahsdebater on 3/11/2019 1:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 3/11/2019 11:56:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 3/11/2019 11:14:00 AM (view original):
To be clear - as of this moment, there are probably sufficient grounds for impeachment. But conviction in theory requires the same burden of evidence as conviction in a criminal court. Certainly no publicly-available evidence supports that burden. So as of right now, regardless of BL's personal opinions, I don't see a legally justifiable path to Trump "losing the most powerful and prestigious job in the world." That may or may not remain true once the Mueller report is filed.

Impeachment is a political process, not criminal court. There is no burden of evidence. Just what the House decides to do.

The Senate trial after impeachment is also a political process. The constitution does not specify the burden of proof required for conviction.

This was the initial question.

And now you're citing procedural aspects of impeachment proceedings, also derived from Common Law, as evidence that we can ignore the burden of proof as inherited from that same Common Law?

There have been at least two impeachment convictions of federal judges in the last hundred years for non-indictable offenses.