Today in Supreme Court History: May 9, 1974

5/9/1974: Resolution to impeach President Nixon introduced in the House of Representatives. On 7/24/1974, the Supreme Court would decide U.S. v. Nixon.

President Richard Nixon

Comments

[not guilty]

George Washington couldn't tell a lie. Richard Nixon couldn't tell the truth. Donald Trump can't tell the difference.

[DaivdBehar]

Nitpicky pretexts to get rid of a failed President perplexed our allies and foes. The case disgraced the nation around the world, not Nixon's pseudo-crime.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Admittedly, May 9 is not a momentous day in Supreme Court history. But . . .

Andersen v. United States, 170 U.S. 481 (decided May 9, 1898): upholding conviction of sailor for shooting crewmember and pushing him overboard. Technical defects in indictment (unclear whether homicide alleged to be caused by shooting or drowning, does not mention location) held harmless error.

Bell v. United States, 349 U.S. 81 (decided May 9, 1955): sentence for Mann Act offense should not be doubled for transporting two women instead of one, due to ambiguity in statute.

Havnor v. New York, 170 U.S. 408 (decided May 9, 1898): Court could not review conviction under New York law (for practicing "barbering" on Sunday) because Writ of Error was signed by an Associate Judge of New York's highest court instead of the Chief Judge as was required by federal jurisdictional statute.

Gacy v. Page, 511 U.S. 1079 (decided May 9, 1994): denying stay of execution of John Wayne Gacy; dissent by Blackmun who restated belief that death penalty is always unconstitutional.

Rice v. Sioux City Memorial Park Cemetery, 349 U.S. 70 (decided May 9, 1955): earlier grant of certiorari, and decision on the merits, 348 U.S. 880 (1954) (as to mental distress to widow due to refusal to bury husband in Native American cemetery) vacated because Court belatedly alerted to statute enacted during the litigation which mooted the issue presented. (D'oh!)

United States ex rel. Johnson v. Shaughnessy, 336 U.S. 806 (decided May 9, 1949): order denying admission of immigrant as "mental defective" vacated and remanded because medical appeal board did not conduct its own examination as required by regulation.

[Krychek_2]

Re Andersen v. United States:

Hangman's Rope Was Weak - Broke When the Trap Was Sprung
Under Cook Andersen of the Schooner Olive Pecker
Norfolk, Va., Dec. 9. John Andersen, the condemned
murderer of Mate Saunders of the schooner Olive Pecker,
was executed in the city jail this afternoon. At 3:06 the
trap was sprung and Andersen shot downward. The rope
parted just inside the knot and his body fell to the
cobblestones.
A thrill of horror ran through the crowd. Officers and
witnesses rushed to the body and snatched the cap from
his head to find blood oozing from mouth, nose, and eyes.
A doctor was called, and soon Andersen opened his eyes,
and it was said began to breathe. He was carried, feet
foremost, up the stairs to the platform, and laid down
until a chair was obtained. He was then placed in this, but
never spoke.
Preparations for rehanging him were hurriedly made.
The other end of the rope was adjusted around his neck.
He was raised to a standing posture and the straps again
placed on his limbs. While being supported by the officers,
the trap was again sprung. In twenty-three minutes life
was pronounced extinct. Nine minutes elapsed between
the first and second drops. Andersen's neck was broken,
supposedly by the last drop. Marshall Treat refused to
turn the body over to the Virginia Anatomical Society,
and it was placed in a handsome casket and buried in the
Seamen's Lot in Elmwood Cemetery. When the rope broke,
there was a cry from some one in the crowd, 'Telegraph to the President!”
New York Times, December 10, 1898

[Dan Schiavetta]

Good God! I was going to say "thanks for this", but . . . !

[Krychek_2]

Your description of the case sparked my curiosity so I googled it. I guess there is such a thing as being too curious.

[Sarcastr0]

MEMO FROM THE NATIONAL AFFAIRS DESK

DATE: MAY 1, 1994
FROM: DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON
SUBJECT: THE DEATH OF RICHARD NIXON: NOTES ON THE PASSING OF AN AMERICAN MONSTER.... HE WAS A LIAR AND A QUITTER, AND HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURIED AT SEA.... BUT HE WAS, AFTER ALL, THE PRESIDENT.

Richard Nixon is gone now, and I am poorer for it. He was the real thing -- a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that "I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon."
...
If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.
...
For Nixon, the loss of Hoover led inevitably to the disaster of Watergate. It meant hiring a New Director -- who turned out to be an unfortunate toady named L. Patrick Gray, who squealed like a pig in hot oil the first time Nixon leaned on him. Gray panicked and fingered White House Counsel John Dean, who refused to take the rap and rolled over, instead, on Nixon, who was trapped like a rat by Dean's relentless, vengeful testimony and went all to pieces right in front of our eyes on TV.

That is Watergate, in a nut, for people with seriously diminished attention spans. The real story is a lot longer and reads like a textbook on human treachery. They were all scum, but only Nixon walked free and lived to clear his name. Or at least that's what Bill Clinton says -- and he is, after all, the President of the United States.

Nixon liked to remind people of that. He believed it, and that was why he went down. He was not only a crook but a fool. Two years after he quit, he told a TV journalist that "if the president does it, it can't be illegal."

Shit. Not even Spiro Agnew was that dumb. He was a flat-out, knee-crawling thug with the morals of a weasel on speed. But he was Nixon's vice president for five years, and he only resigned when he was caught red-handed taking cash bribes across his desk in the White House.

Unlike Nixon, Agnew didn't argue. He quit his job and fled in the night to Baltimore, where he appeared the next morning in U.S. District Court, which allowed him to stay out of prison for bribery and extortion in exchange for a guilty (no contest) plea on income-tax evasion. After that he became a major celebrity and played golf and tried to get a Coors distributorship. He never spoke to Nixon again and was an unwelcome guest at the funeral. They called him Rude, but he went anyway. It was one of those Biological Imperatives, like salmon swimming up waterfalls to spawn before they die. He knew he was scum, but it didn't bother him.
...
He has poisoned our water forever. Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest. But he also shit in our nests, and that was the crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thompson's writing on Nixon was some of the most entertaining and brilliant journalism ever. It still holds up factually, which is amazing, considering how stoned he was.

[RTL]

There is (well, close to) nothing "brilliant" in journalism. It is a trade and can be really well done, just as law is occasionally, but "brilliant" is a big, important word. Don't make it like "awesome" has become.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thompson's language was brilliant. It was not only good journalism but brilliant writing.

[RTL]

Very well written but note: IF it is true, as inferred if not exactly said in recent Durham filings, that the Clinton campaign bugged and/or hacked into Trump computers, that would be a modern equivalent of Watergate. Spying, "breaking in," but by different technology.

[Dan Schiavetta]

IF, to take an equally factual scenario, aliens from Neptune disguised themselves as Democrats and populated the Obama Administration, that would be the modern equivalent of . . . oh never mind.

[BrotherMovesOn]

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

[RTL]

Mr. Blackman -- I beg of you -- please do something about your extreme verbal tick of saying "right" all the time after you speak a declarative sentence. I was watching your lengthy interview with Gillespie on Reason and it was so bad I had to pause occasionally to get away from it. One time you said "right" three times in 20 seconds.

You're a bright fellow and your commentary on The Alito draft has been very thoughtful, bot please!...!