Impeachment of the president is a process started in the House of Representatives by bringing charges in a manner similar to a grand jury indictment. It requires only a simple majority of the House members to proceed further to the Senate for a determination of guilt or innocence.
Obviously, it’s unlikely an impeachment will occur in the House unless it is instituted by the party in charge against a president of the other party. That means politics plays a major role. Nevertheless, I can’t think of a better way to get things started.
The nonsensical part is expecting any hope of a fair verdict to result from the trial in the Senate requiring a two-thirds vote to convict.
As a retired FBI special agent, I’ve spent a lot time in jury trials. Part of that involves selecting a panel of jurors. Through careful questioning, the judge and the prosecution and defense attorneys can eliminate potential jurors they feel are biased or pose a conflict of interest. If that policy was allowed in an impeachment trial, there is no doubt all 100 senators would be ruled ineligible to serve. Why? It’s obvious; the chance of both bias and conflict of interest is practically insured.
The proof of the pudding is the ludicrous results of the two impeachments of former President Donald Trump. I’d venture to guess a panel of impartial jurors would have found him guilty in both instances. That was never going to happen, regardless of the evidence proving his culpability, when the process was significantly compromised by the requirement of enough Republicans crossing over with Democrats to achieve the two-thirds standard.
It wouldn’t have been any fairer had Democrats held enough seats to assure conviction. That would involve just as much bias and conflict of interest as the other way around. Is it possible we can all agree the Constitution is a marvelous document, but it has sadly missed the boat when it comes to conducting a trial for an impeachment? It hasn’t resulted in a just verdict so far and there’s no reason it ever will unless changes are made and the sooner the better.
The challenge is coming up with a better alternative. The U.S. Constitution may have to be amended. Even so, that’s a realistic possibility having occurred 27 times previously. I predict public support would be overwhelming.
I’m certainly unqualified to provide a sure-fire solution. I would hope there are far more skilled constitutional scholars capable of coming up with a way to correct what is now so obviously an untenable approach to reaching a just verdict. Nevertheless, I’ll toss around a couple of thoughts I think might help.
My first suggestion isn’t original. I’ve heard it promoted a couple of times before. That would be to reach a verdict by holding a secret ballot, aka the Australian ballot or Massachusetts ballot. That would be where the senators votes are anonymous. That would help diminish the concern about political backlash, death threats and the like. I’m not sure that would actually require a constitutional amendment.
A second possibility, which most likely would require a constitutional amendment, would be to eliminate the role of the senators all together. How about, instead impaneling an impartial jury to hear the evidence and reach a verdict, a panel of reputable federal judges who have indicated their political independence by identifying themselves as independents when voting? Surely, that would help in rendering an unbiased and non-conflicted verdict.
If nothing changes, it would prove mostly a waste of time and effort to ever again initiate the process of impeaching a president.
Raymond A. Hult, Bountiful, is a retired FBI special agent
Raymond A. Hult, Bountiful, is a retired FBI special agent.