The Impeachment Proceedings Against Trump are a Sham Because Jurors are Supposed to Have an Open Mind and be Impartial
By
David Gottfried
I think Trump is as guilty as flaming, scarlet sin. However, I hope that people realize that the impeachment proceedings deviate dramatically from trials and hearings as they exist in every other segment of American Jurisprudence.
I do not think I need to spend any time explaining why jurors and fact-finders should be impartial.
In real trials, jurors are questioned extensively in an effort to determine whether they have an open mind, are apt to side with one party or another, or have any preconceived notions about the parties. Jurors can be excluded merely because they work in an industry which may, supposedly, make them biased. For example, in personal injury suits, Plaintiffs’ counsel routinely exclude jurors who work for insurance companies because insurance companies pay for Plaintiffs’ damages; this might make the employees of insurance firms prejudiced against Plaintiffs.
The same is true for Judges. Do you remember that Clarence Thomas, in hearings to determine if he would join the Supreme Court, said that he never had an opinion on Roe v. Wade ? He testified that he was in law school at the time Roe was decided and hence too busy to follow the news. That was most probably a lie. If he had said that he had an opinion on Roe v. Wade, that would have meant that he had made up his mind about Roe v. Wade, was not impartial and could not hear and decide cases which pertained to Roe v. Wade. When judges are not impartial, or when any circumstances suggest that a judge might not be impartial, that judge can be disqualified from adjudicating the case in question; very often, the Judge will, on his own volition, recuse himself, or exclude himself, from consideration of the case. I once litigated a case against American Express in New York’s Highest Court, the Court of Appeals in the State Capitol. Two or three judges recused themselves (I don’t recall as it was ages ago.). I suppose they had stock in American Express.
However, most of the Senators, or phony, fraudulent Jurors, are anything but impartial. Senators Cruz, and that total a hole from Missouri whose name escapes me, delivered classically hysterical screaming screeds for Trump. Their presence on a jury is flatly farcical. Likewise, most of the Republican Senators will vote for Trump because of personal and pecuniary interests; they fear they will be booted out of the Senate by their home-state Republicans, men with midget minds pretending to be the minute men. If a judge will recuse himself because he owns 5 shares of American Express, a Senator, whose continued participation in politics rests on his support for Trump, should definitely recuse himself.
Of course, there is a strong rebuke to my position: The Constitution provides that impeachment trials are to be heard before the Senate. It just goes to show you that our Constitution – which among other things, held that blacks were three-fifths of a person and that presidents should not be chosen by the popular vote – is not the angelic thing (Mormons hold that the constitution was divinely inspired.) so many Americans, most of whom have never read the constitution, think it is.
Comparisons to civil or criminal litigation are of only limited use because impeachment is a different sort of thing. It is practically impossible for a Presidential impeachment to have completely independent and impartial jurors and fact-finders. I say that even if it were not heard in the Senate.
In this particular case the problem of impartiality is even more pronounced. Where aside from normal political conflicts of interest, many victims are also jurors. However, it is really just the nature of all Presidential impeachment proceedings. But this can not, or at least should not, be seen as a specific defect in the US constitution. Unless one wants to argue that it should not exist at all. That no redress other than electoral should be permitted. Otherwise we must accept it with its flaws. While still striving to come as close as possible to our ideal of justice.