The 14th Amendment to the Constitution bans anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution bans anyone who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office.

A Florida lawyer is suing Donald Trump in an attempt to disqualify his current run for president. Lawrence A. Caplan’s Thursday lawsuit claims that the ex-president’s involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot would make him ineligible to run again, thanks to the Constitution’s 14th Amendment—a Civil War-era addition aimed at preventing those who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the U.S. from holding office. “Now given that the facts seem to be crystal clear that Trump was involved to some extent in the insurrection that took place on January 6th, the sole remaining question is whether American jurists who swear an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution upon their entry to the bench, will choose to follow the letter of the Constitution in this case,” the lawsuit says, also citing Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Legal experts say it’s an uphill battle to argue in court, since the amendment has hardly been exercised in modern history. “Realistically, it’s not a Hail Mary, but it’s just tossing the ball up and hoping it lands in the right place,” Charles Zelden, a professor of history and legal studies at Nova Southeastern University, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

archive link to South Florida Sun Sentinel article: https://archive.ph/1BntD

    • catreadingabook
      25•1 year ago

      I’m not a lawyer (yet) as I haven’t taken the bar exam, but I remember learning this in law school.

      I can’t find the original court filing that all these news articles are reporting, but presumably, this is a special kind of suit seeking a “declaratory judgment” - a suit asking the court to prevent a harm before it happens.

      Cornell Law School discusses it in a somewhat lengthy read but put “simply”, for standing in this kind of case, the court would want to see:

      a concrete controversy (as opposed to a hypothetical one, e.g. you can’t seek a declaratory judgment “in case my neighbor decides to hit me”),

      between adverse parties (some random citizen can’t sue you for breaking a promise you made to your grandma),

      that is ripe (where enough has already happened that a decision right now wouldn’t require much speculation),

      not moot (has to be able to affect the current case, for example, declaratory judgment isn’t appropriate to determine “should he have done that?”), and

      the court’s decision is needed to prevent imminent harm (has to be relatively certain that a party would be adversely affected if the court doesn’t prevent it from happening).

      Here there could be issues of ripeness: the court might not want to act on the mere possibility that Trump will be found guilty of insurrection etc. Courts don’t like to tell people what they can and can’t do unless a real situation makes it necessary, otherwise the court would risk encroaching on powers that belong to the other branches of government.

    • tim-clark
      10•1 year ago

      That case is also an example of this working. The case in front of the Supreme Court had no standing since is was fake plaintiffs.