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Page Number: 93.0

26 

TRUMP v. UNITED STATES 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

criminal acts.  See ante, at 30–32. 

Even though the majority’s immunity analysis purports
to  leave  unofficial  acts  open  to  prosecution,  its  draconian 
approach  to  official-acts  evidence  deprives  these  prosecu-
tions of any teeth.  If the former President cannot be held 
criminally liable for his official acts, those acts should still 
be admissible to prove knowledge or intent in criminal pros-
ecutions of unofficial acts.  For instance, the majority strug-
gles with classifying whether a President’s speech is in his 
capacity as President (official act) or as a candidate (unoffi-
cial act).  Imagine a President states in an official speech
that he intends to stop a political rival from passing legis-
lation that he opposes, no matter what it takes to do so (of-
ficial act).  He then hires a private hitman to murder that
political rival (unofficial act).  Under the majority’s rule, the
murder indictment could include no allegation of the Presi-
dent’s  public  admission  of  premeditated  intent  to  support 
the mens rea of murder.  That is a strange result, to say the 
least.5 

The  majority’s  extraordinary  rule  has  no  basis  in  law.
Consider the First Amendment context.  Although the First
Amendment  prohibits  criminalizing  most  speech,  it  “does
not prohibit the evidentiary use of speech,” including its use 
“to prove motive or intent.”  Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U. S. 
476, 489 (1993).  Evidentiary rulings and limiting instruc-
tions  can  ensure  that  evidence  concerning  official  acts  is
“considered only for the proper purpose for which it was ad-
mitted.”  Huddleston v. United States, 485 U. S. 681, 691– 
692 (1988).  The majority has no coherent explanation as to 

—————— 

5 The majority suggests, in a footnote, that a “prosecutor may point to 
the public record to show the fact that the President performed the offi-
cial act,” so long as the prosecutor does not “invite the jury to inspect” 
the act in any way.  Ante, at 32, n. 3.  Whatever that suggestion is sup-
posed to accomplish, it does not salvage the majority’s nonsensical evi-
dentiary rule.