The Volokh Conspiracy
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New in the American Spectator: The 11th Circuit Should Reject Jack Smith's Past Political Justifications to Expedite His Latest Appeal
"The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has no reason to accommodate politically motivated efforts to convict Trump before the election or inauguration."
Seth Barrett Tillman and I published a new essay in the American Spectator concerning Special Counsel Jack Smith's pending appeal to the Eleventh Circuit. We write that Smith's only justification to expedite the appeal is to obtain a conviction before the election, or even before the inauguration. The courts are under no obligation to accommodate Smith's politically motivated efforts.
Here is the introduction:
Special Counsel Jack Smith is on a mission to convict Donald Trump before the election, and if needed, before the inauguration. At every level of the judiciary, Smith has urged federal judges to move at breakneck speed so he can get his man. Now that Judge Aileen Cannon has determined that Smith was unlawfully appointed, Smith is once again racing for another appeal. But there is no good reason for the courts to move more quickly than they usually would. Indeed, moving any faster or slower than normal would suggest that the judges are favoring one side or the other.
Despite all the faux outrage over Judge Cannon's decision, she disqualified only one person from pursuing this case: Jack Smith. Cannon did not grant Trump any immunity for his actions during or after he left office. The United States attorney for the southern district of Florida is fully capable of prosecuting Trump. To be sure, Attorney General Merrick Garland does not want his Justice Department to take the heat for prosecuting his boss's political rival, but that is a political problem for Garland and the administration and not a legal problem for the judiciary. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has no reason to accommodate politically motivated efforts to convict Trump before the election or inauguration. Trump should be treated like any other defendant.
And from the conclusion:
Smith seems to have determined that it is in the best interest of our democracy for voters to know whether Trump is convicted of a federal felony before voting. This is an extremely difficult political judgment that turns on disputed conceptions of what the public ought to know for the sake of democracy. Moreover, seeking to time a trial and conviction in this manner would mark a public and complete break with DOJ principles and policies of prosecutorial neutrality. It is imperative that the case against Trump be tried in the ordinary course of law, in the ordinary way, under an ordinary schedule. This case cannot be tried using newly invented legal rules, by a faux prosecutor, under an expedited schedule serving nakedly political (if not partisan) ends. Then-Attorney General Robert H. Jackson wisely observed that "the most dangerous power of the prosecutor" is "that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than cases that need to be prosecuted." Only by adhering to this course of conduct does the judiciary uphold the rule of law.
I will report back when Smith files a motion to expedite the appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, or whether he seeks certiorari before judgment.
