The appointed managers then appear before the bar of the Senate to impeach the individual involved and exhibit the articles against him or her. Once this is completed, the Senate's procedural rules for impeachment govern the process. Initially, upon presentation of charges, the Senate will issue a summons to the accused to appear and enter a plea.
Should the defendant, named the respondent A party against whom a petition to an appellate court is filed. The respondent may also choose to answer the articles brought against him or her. Upon the conclusion of the plea, the Senate will set a trial date. House managers or their counsel then provide the Senate with information regarding witnesses who are to be subpoenaed and may apply to the trial's presiding officer should additional witnesses need to be subpoenaed.
Under Article I, Section 3, clause 6 of the Constitution, the chief justice of the United States only presides over the Senate impeachment trial if the president is being tried. During impeachment trials, the full Senate may receive evidence and take testimony or the Senate may order the presiding officer to appoint a committee of Senators to serve this purpose. If a committee is appointed, the committee will present a certified transcript of the proceedings to the full Senate.
The Senate can also take additional testimony in an open Senate. The Senate may also order that the entire trial be before the full Senate. At the beginning of the trial, House managers and respondent's counsel present opening arguments regarding the impeachment charges.
The House managers, as the prosecution in the trial, present the first argument. During the course of the trial, evidence is presented and witnesses may be put to both direct examination and cross-examination. The presiding officer may rule on any question of evidence presented but the officer can also refer that question to a vote of the Senate and any senator can request a vote on a particular question.
Closing arguments will be presented by each side, with House managers opening and closing. When the trial is concluded, the Senate meets in closed session to deliberate. Voting to convict on the articles of impeachment must be done in open session, and votes are tallied separately on each article. To convict on an article of impeachment, a two-thirds vote of senators present to vote is required. If the respondent is convicted on one or more of the articles, the presiding officer will pronounce the judgment of conviction and removal.
The Senate may subsequently vote on whether the impeached official shall be disqualified from holding an office of public trust under the United States in the future. If the Senate considers such a motion, only a simple majority vote is required.
Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution stipulates that the president, vice president, and all civil officers of the United States can be impeached and removed from office on three charges:.
The document reads, "treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
The phrase high crimes and misdemeanors is also not defined in the Constitution. During the Constitutional Convention, Virginia delegate George Mason suggested adding maladministration to the charges of bribery and treason as impeachable offenses.
When concerns were raised as to the vagueness of the term, Mason substituted high crimes and misdemeanors instead. As the Constitutional Rights Foundation notes, [2]. Most of the framers knew the phrase well. Since , the English parliament had used 'high crimes and misdemeanors' as one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown.
Officials accused of 'high crimes and misdemeanors' were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor it, helping 'suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,' granting warrants without cause, and bribery.
Some of these charges were crimes. Others were not. The one common denominator in all these accusations was that the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve. In Federalist 65, Alexander Hamilton defined impeachable offenses as "those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust.
They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. Douglas of the U. Supreme Court. In a speech on the floor of the House, Congressman Ford defined an impeachable offense as "whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history; Cole and Todd Garvey noted that, [1]. The Constitution expressly provides that the president and vice president of the United States may be impeached.
The Constitution further provides that all civil officers of the United States may be impeached. Joseph Story , in his Commentaries on the Constitution , wrote that "all officers of the United States, therefore, who hold their appointments under the national government, whether their duties are executive or judicial, in the highest or in the lowest departments of the government, with the exception of officers in the army and navy, are properly civil officers within the meaning of the constitution, and liable to impeachment.
The Constitution, in the Appointments Clause , provides the president with the power to appoint officers of the United States which are subject to Senate confirmation and distinguishes these officials from those inferior officers that the Congress may, by law, grant the president the sole power to appoint i.
The U. Supreme Court further recognized the distinction in the two categories under the appointments clause, categorizing these as principal officers and inferior officers respectively, in Edmond v.
A review of studies by the American Judicature Society and the National Center for State Courts, as well as news articles, reveals just two instances of a state judge being impeached in the last 25 years.
In , Pennsylvania impeached and removed the first and only judge in its history, Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen, and in New Hampshire impeached, but the state senate declined to remove, Supreme Court Justice David Brock.
There are more instances, however, of legislators unsuccessfully calling for the impeachment of a judge. However, the impeachment power has historically been limited to cases of serious ethical or criminal misconduct.
For example, in , the House impeached U. District Court Judge Samuel B. Kent on charges of sexual assault, obstructing an official proceeding, and making false statements. Kent resigned before the Senate tried the charges. The next year, the House impeached U. District Court Judge G. Thomas Porteous, Jr. The Senate convicted Porteous. Of the 15 federal judicial impeachments in history, the most common charges were making false statements, favoritism toward litigants or special appointees, intoxication on the bench, and abuse of the contempt power.
While state constitutions vary in their definitions of impeachable offenses, the few recent successful impeachment efforts in states confirm that legislators generally have limited that power to cases of serious ethical and criminal violations. For example, the removal of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Rolf Larsen involved charges that Larsen had asked a doctor to write fraudulent drug prescriptions, improperly communicated with lawyers and a trial judge about a pending case, and lied under oath.
Historical practice suggests a strong tradition against impeaching judges for judicial rulings. Ultimately, the founders decided that during presidential impeachment trials, the House would manage the prosecution, while the Chief Justice would preside over the Senate during the trial.
The founders also addressed what crimes constituted grounds for impeachment. Treason and bribery were obvious choices, but George Mason of Virginia thought those crimes did not include a large number of punishable offenses against the state. But subsequent experience demonstrated the revised phrase failed to clarify what constituted impeachable offenses. The House brings impeachment charges against federal officials as part of its oversight and investigatory responsibilities.
Individual Members of the House can introduce impeachment resolutions like ordinary bills, or the House could initiate proceedings by passing a resolution authorizing an inquiry. The Committee on the Judiciary ordinarily has jurisdiction over impeachments, but special committees investigated charges before the Judiciary Committee was created in The committee then chooses whether to pursue articles of impeachment against the accused official and report them to the full House. If the articles are adopted by simple majority vote , the House appoints Members by resolution to manage the ensuing Senate trial on its behalf.
These managers act as prosecutors in the Senate and are usually members of the Judiciary Committee. The number of managers has varied across impeachment trials but has traditionally been an odd number. The House has initiated impeachment proceedings more than 60 times but less than a third have led to full impeachments.
Just eight—all federal judges—have been convicted and removed from office by the Senate. Trump in and ], a cabinet secretary William Belknap in , and a U. Senator William Blount of Tennessee in have also been impeached. In only three instances—all involving removed federal judges—has the Senate taken the additional step of barring them from ever holding future federal office. Blount, who had been accused of instigating an insurrection of American Indians to further British interests in Florida, was not convicted, but the Senate did expel him.
Other impeachments have featured judges taking the bench when drunk or profiting from their position. Farrand, Max, ed. The Records of the Federal Convention of Kyvig, David E.
0コメント