Joseph A. Hayden Jr. Shares Insights on Recent U.S. Supreme Court Decision on Trump’s Immunity with InsiderNJ
Joseph A. Hayden, Jr., co-chair of both the Criminal Defense practice and the Investigations practice at Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C., recently shared his insights on the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding former president Donald Trump’s immunity in an InsiderNJ article titled, “Hayden on the Prez Immunity Decision.”
“I just finished reading the full opinion and the Trump immunity case, and I believe it is even worse than reported: first of all, although the majority gives lip service to prosecuting private presidential acts, but not official acts, a good lawyer will be able to argue that anything done by a sitting president is an official act, and hence get a full hearing on that act prior to trial, which will be appealable prior to trial.
Secondly, the court ruled that evidence of official acts not only cannot be prosecuted, but such evidence cannot be used as background evidence in a prosecution of a crime for private acts. Given its complexity, the DC case could not be tried for a number of years because there will be further pre-the trial appeals. Moreover, the opinion will embolden the Florida federal judge to declare almost everything Trump did as an official act, and make that case unprosecutable.
Moreover, the concurring decision by Judge Thomas raises questions as to whether or not the appointment of special counsel was illegal in the first place, which will probably cause the Florida federal judge to seriously consider making such a ruling dismissing the whole indictment or carving it up so much that the case cannot be tried. What this decision means for the state cases is hard to analyze, but the defense can tie the prosecution up in knots because of the legal complexities,” said Hayden.
To read the full article in InsiderNJ, click here.
