Immunity for Murder?

By Thomas Coffin

As a person who had the responsibilities and the honor of serving over 51 years in our nation’s justice system, I cannot remain silent about the recent case before the Supreme Court in which the attorney for Donald Trump contended his client enjoyed blanket immunity for any and all actions he made during his time as president of the United States.

I do not speak of the routine actions of presidents which come with the duties of office. I speak of criminal actions, such as murdering political rivals, insurrection, and other actions associated with remaining in office by whatever means are necessary, including the most heinous—assassination.

Please don’t dismiss these concerns. I do not exaggerate. The recent dialogue between Trump’s attorney and the six archconservatives sitting on the Supreme Court was a horrendous preview of a death sentence to the democratic system we take for granted and the rule of law itself.

It doesn’t get more shocking than this—a former president, through the lips of his advocate, contends he is entitled to immunity should he decide to murder his political opponents. Rather than roll their eyes and shake their heads in disbelief, a majority of the justices––the conservative bloc––seemed fine with that idea. Justice Alito opined that presidents must be immune from prosecution or else it would “destabilize our democracy.” Translated, that means that not giving Trump immunity for assassinating whomever displeases him somehow destabilizes democracy, while a license to kill strengthens our democracy.

What cup are they drinking from? In a democracy, we vote, rather than murder candidates and critics, which is exactly what totalitarian regimes do when challenged by people under their system. Think of Putin’s playbook, wherein dozens of Russian dissidents and oligarchs have been assassinated both inside and outside of Russia.

Trump is on record disparaging our Constitution and admiring those of dictators. That he is pushing for blanket immunity is the equivalent of a fire alarm. There would be no end to those on his list. (See my essay The Heritage Foundation Presidential Transition Project 2025.) Already, he has plans to purge the Department of Justice which I served in my career and replace its personnel with those who serve him should he obtain another opportunity. This is the classic mode of dictators. The rule of law would be eliminated to be replaced by the rule of tyranny.

No one has done this in our history. We, the people, must be the guardians who preserve democracy for our progeny. We must hope the Supreme Court does not falter in its duty as well.

Unfortunately, Justice Thomas has a spouse who participated in planning the January 6 insurrection along with Trump and others. Based on her connection to that incident, Thomas should have, but did not, recuse himself from participating in the proceedings. Such is a blatant violation of normal ethical norms, but the Court has no such enforceable ethical codes. Such is itself an affront to the rule of law.

Perhaps the ultimate ruling will be different. Immunity for murder would include the murder of democracy itself, and those are the stakes.

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Thomas Coffin was the keynote speaker at the Blackberry Pie Society’s Political Party in February, 2020 and at Politics and Pie in October, 2022. He is a retired federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and a former professor at the UO Law School. Thomas retired in 2016 after 24 years on the bench, prior to which he had a career as a federal prosecutor spanning 21 years. He is married with 7 children. The Blackberry Pie Society is pleased to include a collection of his essays on our website. We will post them as they become available.

Posted 5.1.2024