WASHINGTON, Apr 23: The US Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday on whether Donald Trump, as a former president, should be immune from criminal prosecution for acts he committed while in office.
The nine justices ruling could have far-reaching implications for the extent of US executive power -- and Trumps own multiple legal issues as he seeks the White House again.
And while most constitutional law experts expect Trump to suffer a legal defeat, he may already have won a political victory.
By agreeing to take the case, the court delayed -- perhaps indefinitely -- the start of Trumps trial on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
The question of whether an ex-president is immune from prosecution is an untested one in American jurisprudence because until Trump, a former White House occupant had never been charged with a crime.
"Famously, Richard Nixon engaged in criminal law-breaking," said James Sample, a constitutional law professor at Hofstra University.
"But because he resigned, and (Nixons successor) Gerald Ford then pardoned him, we have never had to squarely address the notion of a criminal prosecution against a former president."
Special Counsel Jack Smith filed the election conspiracy case against the 77-year-old Trump in August and had been pushing hard for a March start date for the trial.
But Trumps lawyers filed a blizzard of motions seeking to postpone the case against the Republican presidential candidate, including the claim that a former president enjoys "absolute immunity" from prosecution. —AFP
