Kent Work?
Convicted felon and I guess now former Judge Samuel Kent was the first sitting federal judge to be impeached by the House in something like 20 years.* Naturally I was excited for the upcoming Senate trial. But by resigning Kent is hoping to avoid a Senate conviction, which brings us to obscure constitutional question time.
For those of you studying for the bar, the July 2007 exam had a MBE question on the Bill of Attainder clause, so pay attention. Can the Senate continue with the trial and convict? The punishment upon conviction is: "removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States." U.S. const. art. I, sec. 3. Removal is moot. But may the Senate convict just to keep him out of a federal gig? Isn't the felony conviction enough to do that? I want my trial damn it!!!
*The previous judge to have that honor was Chief Judge Walter Nixon of S.D. Miss. who according to a Boalt Prof drew the largest paralegal salary in the State of Mississippi following his conviction and disbarrment.
For those of you studying for the bar, the July 2007 exam had a MBE question on the Bill of Attainder clause, so pay attention. Can the Senate continue with the trial and convict? The punishment upon conviction is: "removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States." U.S. const. art. I, sec. 3. Removal is moot. But may the Senate convict just to keep him out of a federal gig? Isn't the felony conviction enough to do that? I want my trial damn it!!!
*The previous judge to have that honor was Chief Judge Walter Nixon of S.D. Miss. who according to a Boalt Prof drew the largest paralegal salary in the State of Mississippi following his conviction and disbarrment.
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 1:48 PM
2 Comments:
First, I'm not studying for the bar, so the post isn’t necessarily aimed at me. Second, I don't know all the facts, and third, I'm not really interested in looking them up. Nevertheless, I do have two thoughts.
1: I thought Kent wanted to resign sometime far in the future (thereby continuing to collect his federal salary even though he's no longer presiding over cases).
If that's correct, removal is not moot until he resigns.
2: Why is eliminating the punishment available to Kent the same as mooting the misconduct issue that put him before the Senate in the first place? Whether removal is moot seems unrelated to whether the Senate can convict him of an impeachable offense.
Anyway, I’m probably mistaken in some huge and material way so feel free to go back to what you were doing. Which (depending on your class) was probably worrying about your first day of law school, worrying about OCIP, worrying about your summer offer, or worrying about the bar exam, or worrying about your billables.
Kent has submitted a resignation letter. After the House's vote, he prepared the letter and handed it to the person who was delivering the Senate's subpoena.
Kent was intending to resign well into the future, but he also thought that he'd have more time before Congress started the impeachment action.
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