SCOTUS ruling paves way for future despotism

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/07/2024 (489 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Donald Trump’s administration successfully installed three conservative judges on the Supreme Court of the United States, many observers feared — rightfully, as it turned out — the first major agenda item of the reconfigured and decidedly right-leaning high court would be to repeal the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had, since 1973, enshrined constitutional protection for a woman’s right to an abortion.

It seems now, however, the aggressive rollback of reproductive rights was merely the figurative dropping of the ideological first shoe. The second fell earlier this week, in the form of the long-awaited SCOTUS decision on the limits (or lack thereof) on presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.

If Trump’s thinking was that a high court ruled by conservatives and balance-flipped by three of his own hand-picked (and therefore presumably beholden) appointees would be inclined to do his bidding and protect his interests, Monday’s ruling suggests the former president and recently convicted felon was correct in his assumption.

In a 6-3 decision divided sharply along ideological lines, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump and other presidents enjoy a significant degree of immunity for actions taken while in office. In addition to stating that a president is fully immune for actions taken while exercising “core constitutional powers” and entitled to the presumption of immunity for all “official acts,” the ruling also advises that any actions for which he is immune cannot be used as evidence against him in relation to other possible charges.

While it does state a president is not immune from prosecution for “unofficial acts,” the wording of the majority’s ruling makes the current case against Trump immensely more complicated, as it assigns back to a lower court many decisions regarding which actions are immune and which are not.

Such measures are necessary, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote on behalf of the majority, because “under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power requires that a former president have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office,” adding that “at least with respect to the president’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute.”

Under the terms described in the ruling, the imagined president in the oft-repeated hypothetical involving a directive for Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival would be immune from prosecution for ordering the murder of a foe. Same if said president organized a coup to maintain power after losing an election, or accepted a bribe in exchange for issuing a presidential pardon.

Not surprisingly, the three left-leaning judges on the high court disagreed. The ruling, wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a 29-page dissent that has been described as “scathing,” disregards intent and provides immunity to a president who wields power for even the most corrupt purposes.

“Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done,” opined Sotomayor. “The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”

There is no small irony in the fact this Trump-toadying decision from the SCOTUS majority arrived in the same week Americans are celebrating July 4 — otherwise known as Independence Day, which commemorates their nation’s breaking free from the iron-fisted rule of an all-powerful overseas monarch.

What was born on this fourth of July, however, was the very real possibility that the United States’ next presidential election could unwittingly crown the nation’s very own American-made despot.