[treeFall]

Being killed by the government without due process of law (ie: death penalty for convicted criminals) is a clear violation of your constitutional rights though, and violating someone's constitutional rights (read: going against the constitution) can't be an official act by definition.

[brookst]

You’re creating an “any unconstitutional act cannot be official” rule that does not appear in the ruling and is contrary to tons of statute and case law. Qualified immunity codifies that rights violations can be official acts.

And as bad as today’s ruling is, I think your proposed rule would be worse because it would create tons of liability for good faith government employees.

We can’t have a world where it’s unclear if an act is official until there’s some kind of review of its outcome. The act itself has to be official (or not).

[treeFall]

>Qualified immunity

Qualified immunity is unconstitutional

[brookst]

So now we’ve left the land of settled law are are into personal opinions. Which is fair enough, I detest qualified immunity, but it is the law of the land.

[MOARDONGZPLZ]

This is explicitly about the POTUS being immune from prosecution for official acts like commanding ST6 to assassinate someone. Fortunately in some cases, unfortunately in others, semantic wordplay akin to “could god microwave a burrito so hot even they couldn’t eat it” has little effect in the court system. That is to say, semantic gotchas like “but actually it couldn’t be an official act because the very act is against the constitution” have no sway.

[CogitoCogito]

This is at least the second time in this thread you've said something like an official act can't violate someone's constitutional rights "by definition". I'm wondering what definition you refer to.

That said, it's obviously a false statement. By your argument, the president ordering flight 93 to be shot down on 9/11 would not be an official act. You might now retort something about extenuating circumstances, but really that would only show you to be entirely wrong about your original assertion.

I recommend you edit your posts to correct your mistake.

[ffgjgf1]

And you’re are free to sue the government in that case. The DOJ won’t prosecute the president for ordering something like that even after he leaves office..

[jandrese]

"Official Act" has not been defined, so who knows if going against the the Constitution will count. The way the law is worded it may not matter anyway, it's pretty much left up to the courts to decide.

[lenerdenator]

Haven't we had Presidents order airstrikes on American citizens in the Middle East before without a trial because of their association with jihadist groups?

At a certain point the "constitutionality" doesn't matter; it's hard to make a case have a meaningful outcome when the plaintiff is dead.

[Miner49er]

It happened under Obama and nobody cared. I think it is definitely something that could be considered an "official act".

[RajT88]

Some progressives cared, and that was about it.

He also passed an EO afterward which set up a legal framework retroactively justifying it.