Experts See No Parallel for Trial nytimes.com
On the subject of procedure, brees, there's this article from today's good gray Times. It seems that Rehnquist's role here is not particularly close to that of a conventional trial judge. As far as him dismissing members of the Senate, that might present Constitutional problems, wouldn't you say?
Yet it remains unclear whether Chief Justice William Rehnquist will serve in the trial as anything more than a presiding officer, as many have suggested. Any ruling Rehnquist makes may be overturned by a majority of the Senate.
Neuborne said he believed that the chief justice was obliged, nonetheless, to try to enforce a sense of due process. For example, he said, under the plan approved on Friday, it would be possible for the Senate to vote to allow witnesses called by the House prosecutors but to deny hearing witnesses offered by the president's lawyers.
But Neuborne said that should be unthinkable and the chief justice would have to block such an event. "They may be able to limit the witnesses the prosecution presents, but they cannot limit the witnesses the president might think he needs to mount his defense," he said. "And the chief justice took an oath himself, and it's clear he has an obligation to maintain some legal fairness." . . .
And unlike all civil and criminal proceedings, which may be appealed through the court system, the verdict in the impeachment trial may not be taken to the courts, in the view of most scholars. In his 1993 ruling on the impeachment of Nixon, Rehnquist wrote that the Constitution made the Senate the sole arbiter of impeachment.
Of course, historically speaking, Rehquist is well acquainted with the farcical aspects of impeachment, having written a book on the subject. At any rate, Rehnquist is on shaky grounds as far as judging partisanship goes, or morality or lying under oath for that matter, as you may see in nytimes.com
The essence of Rehnquist's early approach to matters racial was spelled out most recently by Jeffrey Rosen in The New Yorker. In the early 50's, as Brown v. Board of Education was coming before the Supreme Court, Rehnquist was a law clerk for Justice Robert Jackson. In that capacity he prepared a memo that he called "A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases."
His random thought was that the boot of segregation should not be lifted from the throats of American blacks. As Rosen says in his article, "Rehnquist wrote that the Court should not be moved by moral or social concerns."
In the memo, the future Chief Justice said, "In the long run it is the majority who will determine what the constitutional rights of the minority are. I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by liberal colleagues, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson [the legal foundation for mandatory racial segregation] was right and should be re-affirmed."
Years later, when his confirmation as Chief Justice was on the line, Rehnquist, in a cowardly move, would tell senators that the memo represented Jackson's -- not Rehnquist's -- views.
This canard was demolished in "Simple Justice," Richard Kluger's great history of the Brown v. Board of Education case, published in 1976. That did not prevent Rehnquist from apparently lying through his teeth to save his judicial skin in 1986.
Jeffrey Rosen notes that Rehnquist, while being questioned by Senator Edward Kennedy and others, insisted under oath that the memo represented Jackson's views.
Kennedy asked, "Do the I's refer to you, Mr. Rehnquist?"
"No, I do not think they do," Rehnquist replied.
There are many ugly racial stories having to do with Thurmond and Rehnquist. Thurmond ran for President as a segregationist on the Dixiecrat ticket because he thought civil rights had already gone too far in 1948. Rehnquist was accused of intimidating black voters in Arizona in the 1960's. The two of them were enemies of black Americans and forgiveness in this corner comes slowly. Bill Clinton has disgraced the office of the Presidency, but to see the likes of Thurmond and Rehnquist sitting in moral judgment of anyone turns my stomach.
Well, anybody hanging around here for any length of time has to have a pretty strong stomach. Sorry about the particular post you responded to, it was just a tit for tat thing. |
