Word: bickel
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...resolution of a number of long open constitutional questions. Last week TIME asked six experts in constitutional law and history to discuss together the complex issues and implications of the case. The six: Raoul Berger, 72, Harvard Law School Senior Fellow and authority on impeachment and Executive privilege; Alexander Bickel, 48, Yale...
Nonetheless, several experts interviewed by TIME believe the President's lawyers are on sound legal ground. Explains Yale Professor Alexander M. Bickel: "The President embodies the continuity of the state. The Constitution assumes that there is no moment when a President is not capable of acting." Since to prosecute or jail a President would break that continuity, Bickel argues that impeachment must come first...
...experts share Bickel's opinion. Columbia Law Professor Albert J. Rosenthal argues that a President kept by a trial from performing his duties could be temporarily removed from office as provided by the 25th Amendment. Further, Harvard Law Professor Raoul Berger suggests in his book, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems, that the Constitution's double-jeopardy clause might preclude prosecution for the same acts that caused a President to be removed from office...
...there are no clear precedents. Kurland believes that since only the President is indispensable, only he enjoys the privilege of immunity. According to the Constitution, the Vice President's sole duty is to preside over the Senate-and to be ready to succeed the President if necessary. But Bickel argues that immunity also applies to the Vice President. He explains: "If he is indictable and can be sent to jail, he is incapable of providing the necessary continuity...
...deliver to the same court its suit demanding that Nixon turn over tapes and other documents relevant to Watergate. Unlike Cox, the committee faces the possibility that the courts may duck its dispute with the President. Indeed, one leading professor of constitutional law, Yale's Alexander M. Bickel, considered the proposition so dicey that he recommended that the committee seek legislation giving the courts jurisdiction in the case. Ervin rejected this course, however, because it would be time-consuming and, as one committee staffer put it, "tantamount to an impeachment proceeding against the President...