Can the Governor of Maine remove Maine&#39;s Attorney General? As I understand it, the President of the United States has an Attorney General (AG) that serves at the pleasure of the President. That means the President can fire the AG at any time. Can you take a look at Maine? Its legislature elects the AG and as I understand it, the AG has a special common law status as a constitutional officer. The Governor of Maine is supposed to ensure that the laws are executed faithfully. Does he have power to do so when it comes to the department of the AG? I'm not only interested in the AG, but I am also interested in the assistant AGs who serve at the AG's pleasure. I assume that if the Governor can't fire the AG, then the Governor also can't fire any AAGs. I'm trying to understand who is in charge. Can the Governor of Maine fire the Attorney General? Otherwise the department of the AG seems like a 4th or 5th branch of government.
Article IX, Section 5 of the constitution says: Removal by impeachment or address. Every person holding any civil office under this State, may be removed by impeachment, for misdemeanor in office; and every person holding any office, may be removed by the Governor on the address of both branches of the Legislature. But before such address shall pass either House, the causes of removal shall be stated and entered on the journal of the House in which it originated, and a copy thereof served on the person in office, that the person may be admitted to a hearing in that person's own defense. This provides at least some mechanism for removing an AG. A subcomittee of the Judiciary Committee of the Maine Legislature reports here on the broader question of tenure of office. p. 5 opines that "Many members of the executive branch of Maine government hold their offices at the pleasure of the Governor and may be removed from office by the Governor's direction to vacate". p. 6 then holds that "For civil officers whose tenure is set by the Constitution, removal from office may only occur through impeachment or address," and the Attorney General is enumerated as one of those Constitutional Officers (referencing Article IX Section 11). The State of Maine web page says that there are three branches of government plus three constitutional officers (state, treasurer, AG) and one statutory officer, thus the AG is not part of the executive branch (and thus the AG does not serve at the pleasure of the Governor).
Many states have laws providing for a residence for their governors, but I know of no state that mandates the use of those homes. Oregon's previous governor, for instance, lived in Portland rather than the governor's mansion, Mahonia Hall. Some cities do the same. In New York City, Mayor Bill De Blasio lives at Gracie Mansion, but Mike Bloomberg never did. Although we don't always think of them as government officials, some government schools provide their presidents with state-funded residences, as well. At the University of Virginia, the president lives at Carr's Hill.
&quot;Seila Law&quot; is a law firm, not a law. They were a party in a recent SCOTUS decision, Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U.S ___, which involved the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created by Congress, under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The court held that the structure of that law (regarding appoinntment and firing of the director) is unconstitutional: The CFPB’s leadership by a single individual removable only for inefficiency, neglect, or malfeasance violates the separation of powers. More specifically, Article II vests the entire “executive Power” in the President alone, but the Constitution presumes that lesser executive officers will assist the President in discharging his duties. The President’s executive power generally includes the power to supervise — and, if necessary, remove — those who exercise the President’s authority on his behalf. The President’s removal power has long been confirmed by history and precedent. The law in question addresses a single position, director of CFPB, not all government agencies. &quot;Agency&quot; is defined in 18 USC 6 as includes any department, independent establishment, commission, administration, authority, board or bureau of the United States or any corporation in which the United States has a proprietary interest, unless the context shows that such term was intended to be used in a more limited sense. &quot;Department&quot; is then defined as one of the executive departments enumerated in section 1 of Title 5, unless the context shows that such term was intended to describe the executive, legislative, or judicial branches of the government. POTUS firing power is about the executive branch, not the judicial or legislative branches, so it depends on what you mean by &quot;agency&quot;. You can infer possible outcomes based on this ruling, but what they literally said is that particular law is unconstitutional.
As mentioned in a comment by @Dancrumb, the exact policies of each local police department will be different, and there are thousands of them. There is a relevant requirement at the Federal level according the Department of Justice, but it is not clear to me to what extent this applies to peers and not just supervisors: An officer who purposefully allows a fellow officer to violate a victim's Constitutional rights may be prosecuted for failure to intervene to stop the Constitutional violation. To prosecute such an officer, the government must show that the defendant officer was aware of the Constitutional violation, had an opportunity to intervene, and chose not to do so. This charge is often appropriate for supervisory officers who observe uses of excessive force without stopping them, or who actively encourage uses of excessive force but do not directly participate in them.
Art II, Sec 2, Cl 1 of The Constitution says of the president "and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment". The Constitution does not state any further restrictions on the presidential power, and there are no statutory limits, because, as observed in Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. 333 The power of pardon conferred by the Constitution upon the President is unlimited except in cases of impeachment. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment. The power is not subject to legislative control. Accordingly, presidents have written pardons on and with numerous different writing instruments. Insofar as there are no constitutional restrictions beyond the aforementioned, it is not required that a pardon be signed, or that it be on a tangible semi-permanent medium. It is impossible to know what such a pardon tweet would look like, beyond the limit on length. The one place where a presidential signature is required is under the Presentment Clause, that when presented with a bill that passed the two houses of Congress, "If he approve he shall sign it". Such a signature need not be actually written by the president, it may and often is written by an autopen. The question of the legality of autopen signatures for bills has not been presented to SCOTUS, but the Department of Justice has issued an opinion (July 7, 2005) that it is legal. I have failed to locate a repository of presidential pardons (the actual documents), so I do not know if, so far, all presidential pardons were written down and signed, though I would expect it to be so. The Arpaio pardon was signed (or auto-signed), likewise Obama's final mass-pardon on Jan 17, and previous Obama pardons were, but pre-Obama, DOJ does not provide any document.
I think we're talking about In re Hennen, which dealt with the removal of the clerk of the district court in Louisiana: It all these departments power is given to the secretary, to appoint all necessary clerks; 1 Story, 48; and although no power to remove is expressly given, yet there can be no doubt, that these clerks hold their office at the will and discretion of the head of the department. It would be a most extraordinary construction of the law, that all these offices were to be held during life, which must inevitably follow, unless the incumbent was removable at the discretion of the head of the department: the President has certainly no power to remove. These clerks fall under that class of inferior officers, the appointment of which the Constitution authorizes Congress to vest in the head of the department. The same rule, as to the power of removal, must be applied to offices where the appointment is vested in the President alone. The nature of the power, and the control over the officer appointed, does not at all depend on the source from which it emanates. The execution of the power depends upon the authority of law, and not upon the agent who is to administer it. And the Constitution has authorized Congress, in certain cases, to vest this power in the President alone, in the Courts of law, or in the heads of departments; and all inferior officers appointed under each, by authority of law, must hold their office at the discretion of the appointing power. Such is the settled usage and practical construction of the Constitution and laws, under which these offices are held. In re Hennen, 38 U.S. 230, 259–60, 10 L. Ed. 138 (1839) (emphasis added).
Yes. This is legal, even though it is highly unlikely. There were very few, if any, instances of the federal pardon power being used this way historically, but it could happen, and President Trump, while he was in office, intimated that he might use the pardon power in this fashion. Realistically, it would be easier for the President to prevent someone from being prosecuted in the first place if the crime took place during his term, but he might pardon someone who committed the crime under a previous administration. The fact pattern in the question: “don’t be surprised if I pardon anyone that puts to death repeat heroin and fentanyl dealers dealing in amounts larger than 50 pounds” doesn't sound very morally palatable. But consider a slight variant of it which is much more plausible. Suppose that while running for office a Presidential candidate says: don't be surprised if I pardon someone who was convicted of homicide in a previous administration for killing someone who had been using them as a sex slave in a human trafficking network, or killing someone who was in the process of raping them shortly before their divorce became final but was not allowed to assert a self-defense argument at trial because marital rape was legal at the time. Now arguably that's different, because it doesn't induce someone to commit a future crime. But the President has broad discretion to make policy to de-emphasize certain kinds of criminal prosecutions in any case while in office even without the pardon power, and generally, this is not a basis for having a special prosecutor appointed at the federal level since there is no individualized conflict of interest. Of course, the U.S. President can only pardon someone from a federal crime and can't pardon state crimes or criminal convictions from other countries. So, even if the President pardoned someone of a federal crime in this situation, the state in which the murders took place could prosecute the individual for murder unimpeded (constitutional double jeopardy considerations would also not bar a state prosecution following the federal prosecution). Indeed, the vast majority of murder prosecutions are made under state law, and there are very few murders that take place which are beyond the jurisdiction of any U.S. state and any foreign country, that are in the jurisdiction of the U.S. government and covered by a federal homicide statute, in any year. As noted by @hszmv in a comment to another answer: Federal Murder charges are a thing and can be prosecuted, but are normally reserved for murders that either involve federal government employees (especially if they are murdered because of the duties the performed in the course of their duty or the status as a federal employee) OR murders that occur on Federally Owned Property OR the Murder involved crossing state lines OR is in U.S. Jurisdiction but not in a territory or state jurisdiction (usually applies to some uninhabited territorial islands or U.S./International Waters). Further, a pardon would not prohibit the victim's family for suing the murderer for wrongful death, and indeed, probably wouldn't prohibit them from using the murder conviction that was pardoned to conclusively establish liability in a civil case under the doctrine of collateral estoppel (I haven't researched that highly specific and technical civil procedure issue, however, but even if that wasn't possible, the murder trial transcript would be admissible in the civil case). A civil judgement for wrongful death was famously obtained against O.J. Simpson by the victim's family after O.J. Simpson was acquitted in a criminal murder trial. This tactic would really only be helpful to a prospective defendant with respect to cases where there is not a parallel criminal offense under state law.
Under the present constitution . . . Are there any consequences of the fact that the Constitution of Massachusetts and the Constitution of the United States use two different names for that state? No. Lots of the language in the United States Constitution is no longer in place or in common usage or is invalid due to subsequent amendments, and that language is still effective as originally intended. The U.S. Constitution has never been "amended and restated" and can't be understood properly without annotations to its raw text. Might a federal statute be needed for some states (e.g. Vermont, because of what is noted above) but not for others, because of differences in the federal statutes that admitted the state, or because of the lack of any need for admission by Congress in the case of the original thirteen states? Not really. Every state's name is embedded in myriad federal laws and regulations in addition to the statute that admitted the state to the United States, e.g. laws assigning names to post offices, laws allocating judgeships, laws purchasing property, laws appropriating funds, laws assigning states to various districts for purposes of executive branch departments and the judiciary, tax laws (e.g. the Obamacare tax credit), etc. Would a state statute suffice? Would a state constitutional amendment suffice? Would a federal statute suffice without a state statute or a state referendum? Would a federal constitutional amendment be needed? A federal constitutional amendment would not be needed. The Constitution vests Congress with the authority to admit states and to change their boundaries with the permission of the affected states. This would be within the power over states that could be inferred from those powers. A state and the federal government could each pass a statute to call itself something different for various purposes. For example, the official name of the state of Rhode Island is "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" but various state and federal statutes authorize the use of the short form of the "State of Rhode Island" for most purposes. As a practical matter a state constitutional amendment would probably be desirable on general principles to officially change the name of a state, whether or not it was strictly required, in part, because a state constitution usually sets forth an official name of a state in its body text. It would be possible for a state to change its constitution and statutes and change its name in a move that the federal government did not accept, and if that happened, the federal government and its officials would probably continue to use the old name and the state government and its officials would probably use the new name. I think it is as a practical matter, unlikely that a standoff like this would persist, but I think that this is the most likely outcome. A federal government move to change a state's name without its consent proactively, however, would probably be struck down as violating federalism concerns. Of course, all of this is speculative, because there are really no precedents for disputes over the changing of a state's name. Context would influence the outcome of any such case.