Saturday, February 8, 2020

All 100 Senators have Right to Serve in the Impeachment Proceedings

   I have suggested we perhaps could winnow out biased Senators from casting votes in the impeachment process.
   Well, I think I probably was wrong.
   My thought was, the Sixth Amendment says all trials in America are to be before an impartial jury. Surely, we cannot consider trials where all the Republicans vote one way and all Democrats the other, to be providing such justice. There is no way that is impartial. Cannot we have some kind of jury selection, and winnow out the offending Senators, and sit only those most inclined to be impartial? I thought, perhaps we could.
  But, a more thorough reading of the Constitution seems to render me wrong. To begin with, there's this clause in Article II, Section 2, paragraph three: "The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by jury . . ."
  So, impeachments need not ever be by jury. The Sixth Amendment might say trials shall be by impartial juries, but the Senate isn't a jury, in the sense that the judge screens the candidates for the jury and seats them as such -- seats them as selected jury members. They are a jury, in actuality, for they do vote to convict or acquit, and that is what juries do. But, they do not arrive at their position through the normal process by which jury members are selected.
  Then, there is this, Article 1, Section 3, paragraph six: "And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present."
  There are 100 members in the Senate. Members are members. When it says, "two thirds of the Members," the word "Members" seems to be referring to all of them, the full Senate. Every senator is invited.
  I do cast a backward eye at what I have just said. After, "two thirds of the Members," there is one more word, "present." Does that leave open the notion that you could have a jury selection and the ones not selected would be not "present"?
  My judgment is, no. I am thinking all 100 Senate members have the right to serve in the impeachment proceedings.

(Edited for clarity Feb. 9, 2020.)

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