Clinton v. Jones
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| Clinton v. Jones | |||||||||||||||
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| Argued January 13, 1997 Decided May 27, 1997 |
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| Holding | |||||||||||||||
| The Constitution does not protect the President from civil litigation involving actions committed before he entered office. | |||||||||||||||
| Court membership | |||||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: William Rehnquist Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer |
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| Case opinions | |||||||||||||||
| Majority by: Stevens Joined by: Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg Concurrence by: Breyer |
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| Laws applied | |||||||||||||||
| U.S. Const. art. II | |||||||||||||||
Clinton v. Jones, , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case establishing that a sitting President of the United States has no immunity from civil law litigation against him, for facts unrelated to his office (having occurred before he took office).
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[edit] Background of the case
On May 6, 1994, former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones filed a sexual harassment suit against U.S. President Bill Clinton and former Arkansas State Police Officer Danny Ferguson. She claimed that on May 8, 1991, Clinton, then Governor of Arkansas, crudely propositioned her. She stated that she had kept quiet until a David Brock article in The American Spectator about Troopergate that falsely claimed an Arkansas state employee named "Paula" had offered to be Clinton's mistress. Ferguson had escorted Jones to Clinton's hotel room, stood guard, and claimed that Jones said that she would not mind being Clinton's mistress.
The suit, Jones v. Clinton, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Judge Susan Webber Wright, who had taken a class under then-Professor Clinton at the University of Arkansas School of Law, ruled that a sitting President could not be sued and deferred the case until the conclusion of his term (although she allowed the pre-trial discovery phase of the case to proceed without delay in order to start the trial as soon as Clinton left office).
Both Clinton and Jones appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which ruled in favor of Jones, finding that "the President, like all other government officials, is subject to the same laws that apply to all other members of our society."
Clinton then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, filing a petition for writ of certiorari .
[edit] Decision
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals.
In the majority opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court ruled that separation of powers does not mandate that federal courts delay all private civil lawsuits against the President until the end of his term of office.
In his concurring opinion, Breyer argued that presidential immunity would apply only if the President could show that a private civil lawsuit would somehow interfere with the President's constitutionally-assigned duties.
[edit] Aftermath
On April 1, 1998, Wright granted summary judgment to Clinton in Jones v. Clinton. A witness in Jones v. Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, denied having engaged in a sexual relationship with Clinton. A Lewinsky friend, Linda Tripp, had recorded conversations where Lewinsky discussed her affair with Clinton. Tripp then turned the tapes over to Kenneth Starr, an independent counsel investigating Clinton's misconduct in office. The revelations from these tapes became known as the Lewinsky scandal.
In the Court's opinion in Clinton v. Jones, Stevens had written, "...it appears to us highly unlikely to occupy any substantial amount of petitioner's time." The Supreme Court's ruling in Clinton v. Jones led to the District Court's hearing of Jones v. Clinton, which led to the Lewinsky scandal, which led to charges of perjury and obstruction of justice and the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
On April 12, 1999, Wright found Clinton in contempt of court for "intentionally false" testimony in Jones v. Clinton, fined him $90,000, and referred the case to the Arkansas Supreme Court's Committee on Professional Conduct, as Clinton still possessed a law license in Arkansas.[1]
The Arkansas Supreme Court suspended Clinton's Arkansas law license in April 2000. On January 19, 2001, Clinton agreed to a five-year suspension and a $25,000 fine in order to avoid disbarment and to end the investigation of Independent Counsel Robert Ray (Starr's successor). On October 1, 2001, Clinton's U.S. Supreme Court law license was suspended, with 40 days to contest his disbarment. On November 9, 2001, the last day for Clinton to contest the disbarment, he opted to resign from the Supreme Court Bar, surrendering his license, rather than facing penalties related to disbarment.
[edit] External links
- Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997) (full text with links to cited material)
- Audio recordings of the Clinton v. Jones oral argument
