About Trump’s Death Penalty Tweets

[Draggingtree]

American Greatness

About Trump’s Death Penalty Tweets

By Dennis Saffran| November 9, 2017

The indignation was so strong that Tom Nichols even ran “out of ‘can’t evens.’”

Trump’s critics repeated this legal conclusion as if it were the only and obvious one.  But in fact, it’s not obvious, at all. Further, and more fundamentally, they acted as if the legal consideration were the only one a president should consider, disregarding that presidents sometimes have a conflicting political and policy responsibility, and, therefore, a moral obligation to give voice to legitimate public outrage.

But let’s look at the legal issues first. There’s actually almost no case law on whether comments by a public official on the guilt or proper punishment of a criminal defendant impact the right to a fair trial, and if so what the remedy in those cases should be.