Academic

Tillman on Chafetz on Impeachment & Assasination

By Lawrence Solum

Seth Barrett Tillman (United States District Court, NJ) has posted The Originalist Who Came in from the Cold: A Response to Professor Josh Chafetz's Impeachment & Assassination on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This article is a short response to Professor Josh Chafetz's "Impeachment & Assassination," 95 Minn. L. Rev. (forthcoming Nov. 2010).

According to Professor Josh Chafetz, ?impeachment maintains the link between removal and death, but attenuates it?. Impeachment is ? a political death?a President who is impeached and convicted is deprived of his continued existence as a political officeholder. And, like death, impeachment and conviction may be permanent.? In this short response, it is my purpose to show that Chafetz?s proposed metaphor does not work and, indeed, that inferences drawn from this metaphor lead Chafetz far afield from the Constitution?s original public meaning.

Chafetz's article was recommended on LTB when it was posted in the spring & Tillman identifies important limits on Chafetz's central comparison.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on October 15, 2010 (boomark / email).