Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-635_o7jq.pdf
Page Number: 53

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

9 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

subjecting a sitting President to criminal prosecution would 
severely hamper his ability to carry out the vital responsi-
bilities that the Constitution puts in his hands.

Justice  Joseph  Story  endorsed  this  reasoning  in  his  fa-
mous treatise.  He wrote that a President’s responsibilities
necessarily  entail  “the  power  to  perform  [those  duties],
without  any  obstruction  or  impediment  whatsoever,”  and 
that, as a result, a President is not “liable to arrest, impris-
onment, or detention” while in office.  3 Commentaries on 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  §1563,  pp.  418–419 
(1833).

The  constitutional  provisions  on  impeachment  provide
further  support  for  the  rule  that  a  President  may  not  be 
prosecuted while in office.  The Framers foresaw the need 
to provide for the possibility that a President might be im-
plicated in the commission of a serious offense, and they did 
not want the country to be forced to endure such a President
for the remainder of his term in office.  But when a Presi-
dent has been elected by the people pursuant to the proce-
dures  set  out  in  the  Constitution,  it  is  no  small  thing  to 
overturn that choice.  The Framers therefore crafted a spe-
cial set of procedures to deal with that contingency.  They
put the charging decision in the hands of a body that repre-
sents  all  the  people  (the  House  of  Representatives),  not  a 
single prosecutor or the members of a local grand jury.  And 
they  entrusted  the  weighty  decision  whether  to  remove  a 
President  to  a  supermajority  of  Senators,  who  were  ex-
pected to exercise reasoned judgment and not the political 
passions of the day or the sentiments of a particular region. 
The  Constitution  not  only  sets  out  the  procedures  for 
dealing with a President who is suspected of committing a 
serious offense; it also specifies the consequences of a judg-
ment  adverse  to  the  President.  After  providing  that  the
judgment cannot impose any punishment beyond removal 
from the Presidency and disqualification from holding any 
other federal office, the Constitution states that “the Party