What does it mean to &quot;hold and enjoy&quot; an office? US Constitution, Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7: Judgment in Cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. Is this simply redundant? Or does &quot;and enjoy&quot; actually affect the meaning? I cannot imagine that one would still be qualified to hold the office, so long as they do not also &quot;enjoy&quot; it.
The Constitution was written hundreds of years ago. At the time, &quot;enjoy&quot; more widely had the meaning &quot;To have the use or benefit of, have for one's lot (something which affords pleasure, or is of the nature of an advantage)&quot; (emphasis added).
Whether or not one holds the opinion that the adult morally should be prosecuted, there are only two legal questions – can the adult be prosecuted, and must the adult be prosecuted? The easiest question to answer is the &quot;must&quot; one – prosecution by the government is always discretionary. It is settled law that the government can decline to prosecute a crime. The decision to prosecute is entirely political. It seems likely that the government can prosecute, if they conclude that the action was not legally justified under §418 of the Crimes Act 1900, as defense of another against a criminal assault. The government won't prosecute if they conclude that such a defense is likely to succeed.
You misunderstand the significance of the phrase "innocent until proven guilty." This is in part because you are not considering the entire phrase. The full phrase is that an accused party is "presumed innocent until proven guilty." This does not mean that the accused is innocent, only that criminal procedure must take as its starting point that the accused did not commit the crime. The major implication of the presumption, and indeed its original purpose, is that it places the burden of proof on the prosecution. This means that if a prosecutor asserts that you stole something, you do not have to prove that you did not. Rather, the prosecutor must prove that you did. The only reason to present evidence of your own is to rebut the prosecutor's evidence. Another practical implication is that a decision to detain someone awaiting a criminal trial may not be based on the assumption that the accused committed the crime. On the other hand, that decision is not based on the assumption that the accused did not commit the crime. There is a presumption of innocence, but no assumption of innocence, and the government is not obliged before the person is convicted to treat the person as if there is no accusation or charge. Wikipedia has a decent discussion. If we modify your question accordingly, it becomes How can two people be presumed innocent until proven guilty if their stories conflict? Now the answer should be clear. The prosecutor must develop evidence that shows which one of the people has committed the crime. If the prosecutor cannot do that, neither person may be punished.
The US President is indeed bound by the Constitution, and indeed by the ordinary laws. Current Justice Department policy is that a sitting president may not be indicted. No court has ever held this, the US Constitution does not give explicit presidential immunity the way it gives limited immunity to members of congress (in the &quot;speech and debate&quot; clause). No sitting US President has ever been charged with a crime, much less indicted, so the matter has never come before a court. An old news story indicated that President Grant was stopped for a traffic offense (speeding, in a horse-drawn carriage), accompanied the officer to a police station, paid an appearance bond for the traffic court, and then failed to appear, forfeiting the bond. Even if this is accurate, no claim of presidential immunity was made, and no court decision was rendered. So no precedent was established by that event, one way or the other. Any President may be impeached and convicted, if Congress sees fit to do so. There is no enforceable standard on just what is and is not an impeachable offense. That is left to the sound judgement of Congress. Nor is Congress required to act if it chooses not to, no matter how strong the evidence may be. Nixon's Vice President , Spiro Agnew, was investigated for alleged corrupt practices. It appeared that Maryland (where he had been Governor) was ready to indict him on several charges. He was persuaded to plead &quot;no contest&quot; in a plea bargain to a single count, and was sentenced to probation with no jail time. At the same time, he resigned as VP. No one knows what would have happened had he continued to insist on his innocence, and claimed before the court that a sitting VP could not lawfully be indicted (a claim he had made earlier in the process). Even assuming that a sitting President cannot be indicted or tried, nothing prevents such a person from being charged and perhaps convicted after his or her term has ended. The constitution explicitly says that if an official is impeached and removed from office, there may be a subsequent trial on any relevant charges. Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law. (Art I; section 3; clauses 6&amp;7) Whether any statute of limitations would be tolled (paused) while the president was in office cannot be determined until and unless the matters comes before a court for a decision. Note that the US Constitution imposes few duties or obligations on individuals. it is mostly concerned with specifying he structure of the federal government, and the powers of and limitations on its various parts. It also specifies the relations between the Federal and State Governments. It also declares a number of rights held by individuals, most of which can be regarded as limitations on the power of the government. If the President were to be accused of a crime, it would almost surely be one established by statute, not by the constitution directly, because treason is the only crime defined directly by the constitution. However, the official acts of the president are clearly limited by the Constitution, and in a number of cases have been held void as being unconstitutional. One of the more famous cases is Youngstown Sheet and Tube vs Sawyer 343 U.S. 579 (1952), also known and the &quot;steel mills seizure case&quot;. During the Korean War, President Truman attempted to take control of a number of steel mills to stop a labor dispute, on the ground that this was hindering the national defense. The US Supreme Court ruled that he lacked the power to do this, and that his action was void.
Some of the documents are here. As document 61 of the trial, the government motion for bench trial, argues, There is no constitutional right to a jury trial for criminal contempt charges resulting in a sentence of imprisonment of six months or less. Arpaio responds in document 62 that Defendant Arpaio acknowledges that there is no constitutional right to a jury trial for defendants charged with “petty” offenses where the maximum sentence does not exceed six months imprisonment, but continues the argument (the point being that there is no question that there is no absolute right to a jury trial, esp. in the instant case). He argues Many of the actions of the referring judge will become an issue in the case, calling into question the objectives and motives of Judge Snow. A public official’s actions and motives should and must be decided by an impartial jury of the elected official’s peers. The court order is document 83. There, The Court finds that this case is appropriate for a bench trial. This case focuses on the application of facts to the law to determine if Defendant intentionally violated a court order. Essentially, since there is no right to a jury trial and no compelling reason to grant a jury trial (e.g. the court found no merit to his argument that there would be the appearance of impropriety), the motion for a bench trial was granted. The order cites case law regarding the "not longer that 6 months" rule from Muniz v. Hoffman, 422 U.S. 454; United States v. Rylander, 714 F.2d 996; Taylor v. Hayes, 418 U.S. 488; United States v. Aldridge, 995 F.2d 233; United States v. Berry, 232 F.3d 897.
TL;DNR: At the time of the Founding, bribery covered both giving and taking a bribe. Two definitions of bribery from the Founding Era. It is often hard to say exactly what a word meant &quot;in the English language as it existed at the time of the framers.&quot; However, in this case, it's not hard. It’s easy! There are plenty of examples of people defining bribery to include both giving and receiving. I’ve picked two. The first is Lord Mansfield, one of the most distinguished English judges of the 18th century. In 1769, he defined bribery in the case of Rex v. Vaughan, which involved an attempt to bribe a privy councilor. Mansfield’s definition was widely quoted by American judges and treatise writers well into the 20th Century: Wherever it is a crime to take, it is a crime to give. They are reciprocal. And in many cases...the attempt is a crime. The second definition comes Noah Webster. He defined bribery in 1828, in the first edition of his American Dictionary of the English Language. Bribery: The act or practice of giving or taking rewards for corrupt practices; the act of paying or receiving a reward for a false judgment, or testimony, or for the performance of that which is known to be illegal, or unjust. It is applied both to him who gives, and to him who receives the compensation… A Bonus: James Madison on the language of the Constitution James Madison was one of the architects of the Constitution. He played a major role in drafting the Constitution and the Bill of Right, and in the campaigns to get them ratified. It is not clear that he thought the meaning of the words at the Founding would be all that useful in figuring out what the Constitution means. In Federalist 37, he discussed the role of language in deciding what the Constitution meant. He was writing to answer critics who claimed the text of the Constitution was too unclear and vague. Here is what he said: All new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill, and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation, are considered as more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning be liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications. Madison went on to say that human language is so deeply flawed that when God uses it, even His messages are “rendered dim and doubtful by the cloudy medium through which it is communicated.” Although Madison's prose can be hard to follow, Federalist # 37 is worth a look.
There are several possible ways to get there, but the answer is "there is no such position." Acting President vs. President Under the Constitution: In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected. When William Henry Harrison died, there was some question as to what "the same" that devolved on Tyler (his VP) meant. Some thought it meant that Tyler was Acting President; others thought the office itself went to Tyler. Tyler was in the latter group, and set a precedent that the VP became the President (finishing out the President's term) if the President died; the VP wasn't just acting. The 25th Amendment later clarified that presidential death, removal, or resignation made the VP the President; if the President was unable to exercise the powers and duties of the office, the VP was Acting President. Further down the line, the Constitution explicitly says Congress decides "who shall act as President." Congress only talks about succession further down the line in terms of the Acting President and the officer acting as President. So, if that interpretation is correct, the answer is "the VP is the only officer who can assume the office of President in the event of the President's death." Of course, a new precedent could potentially be set if this situation ever arises; if someone will definitely act as President until the end of the term, then it makes a certain amount of sense to say they just assume the office itself. Eligibility for office The Constitution doesn't say "you can't be elected President unless over 35, natural-born citizen, and 14 years a resident." It says you are not eligible for the office unless you meet those requirements. That would include any way of assuming the office, including succession. You can't become President if you are not eligible to hold the office, period (that's what eligibility for an office means); the only requirements you'd get around are those covering eligibility to be elected. Succession It's unclear whether the Constitution's eligibility requirements apply to a person acting as President who does not assume the office. However, Congress has decided that they should. 3 USC &sect;19, which sets out who acts as President if both President and VP are unable to, says: (e) Subsections (a), (b), and (d) of this section [i.e. the ones listing people who can act as President] shall apply only to such officers as are eligible to the office of President under the Constitution.
That remains to be determined. This article (100 Tex. L. Rev. 56 (2021)) discusses the possibility. To start, the Constitution does not directly say that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted. The lack of an express presidential immunity and the fact that an attempt by Madison to create such an immunity is an indication of &quot;original intent&quot;. The view that an incumbent president cannot be indicted, prosecuted, convicted or punished is a policy stance set forth by the Dept. of justice, but is not constitutional law. Alito in Trump v. Vance points to some apparently negative consequences of allowing indictment of a sitting president, but this was in a dissenting opinion. Practical considerations of policy might argue for not prosecuting a sitting president, but the Constitution itself does not expressly forbid it. As we know from numerous SCOTUS rulings, the court is also capable of finding implicit support for a rule in the Constitution. For example theimpeachment provisions do not demand or even hint that impeachment must precede trial and punishment. An argument that prosecution would &quot;incapacitate&quot; the president is met with the fact that there is a provision for replacing an incapacitated POTUS with VPOTUS as acting president. The idea that a trial interferes with a person's ability to do their job (or that they can't adequately participate in their defense if they are doing their job) has not actually prevented ordinary people with jobs from being prosecuted for their crimes.