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<\/div>U.S. President Donald Trump on December 19 became the third U.S. president to be impeached when the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted to charge him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Republican-controlled Senate is due to weigh these charges in a trial in January.<\/p>\n
In the unlikely event he is found guilty, Trump would be removed from office.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Trump and his Republican allies have attacked the impeachment effort as illegitimate, invoking concepts like “due process” and “hearsay” that are commonly associated with criminal cases.<\/p>\n
While U.S. senators will serve as jurors, legal experts say an impeachment trial will look fundamentally different from a U.S. criminal proceeding. Here are the reasons why.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
HOW DOES AN IMPEACHMENT TRIAL WORK?<\/b><\/p>\n
In an impeachment probe, the House functions like a prosecutor’s office. If the chamber charges a president with committing impeachable offenses, a group of House members presents evidence of wrongdoing during a trial before the Senate, which acts as a jury in deciding whether the president should be removed from office.<\/p>\n
Historically, presidents facing impeachment trials have been granted some protections like what defendants receive in criminal cases, such as the right to have a lawyer present and request witness testimony. But legal experts say impeachment proceedings were never intended to be conducted like criminal cases.<\/p>\n
In a 1974 report, the House Judiciary Committee said impeachment was a remedial process, rather than punitive one.<\/p>\n
“Impeachment and the criminal law serve fundamentally different purposes,” the report stated. “The purpose of impeachment is not personal punishment; its function is primarily to maintain constitutional government.”<\/p>\n
DO SENATORS NEED TO BE IMPARTIAL?<\/b><\/p>\n
U.S. judges are required to ensure that jurors are fair and do not prejudge a case.<\/p>\n
Similarly, under the U.S. Constitution and Senate rules, senators take an oath and swear they will be impartial.<\/p>\n
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But as a practical matter, senators can declare their allegiance before trial and cannot be disqualified for bias, said Frank Bowman, an impeachment scholar at the University of Missouri School of Law.<\/p>\n
“You can imagine what a mess the trial would be if disqualification motions would be entertained. Everybody would be moving to disqualify everybody, and then the question would be what body decides such a motion,” Bowman said.<\/p>\n
IS HEARSAY EVIDENCE ALLOWED?<\/p>\n
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U.S. law restricts what evidence is admissible in a criminal case. The complex rules limit the use of “hearsay,” or secondhand information.<\/p>\n
Such evidentiary rules do not apply to impeachment.<\/p>\n
Republican lawmakers have criticized the House’s impeachment probe as a political exercise based on hearsay. They say witnesses like former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who testified at House hearings, never spoke directly to Trump and therefore lack credibility.<\/p>\n
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U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts could conceivably block evidence from being used in the Senate trial on the grounds that it is irrelevant or hearsay, but such a determination could be overturned by a majority vote of the Senate, legal experts said.<\/p>\n
Roberts does not want to be seen as partisan, so he will likely “tread very carefully” and let senators make important decisions, Bowman said.<\/p>\n
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WHAT IS THE STANDARD OF PROOF?<\/b><\/p>\n
Jurors in criminal cases are instructed not to convict a defendant unless there is proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n
There is no formal standard of proof in impeachment proceedings, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
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“One would think there is an answer to this basic procedural question, but there is not,” Levinson said.<\/p>\n
Jurors in criminal cases are asked to make factual determinations, Bowman said. Senators, on the other hand, are making both factual determinations and political judgments, making it difficult to set a standard of proof, Bowman said.<\/p>\n
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HOW MANY SENATORS MUST VOTE TO CONVICT?<\/b><\/p>\n
Under the U.S. Constitution, a two-thirds vote of the Senate is required to convict the president. That differs from most criminal trials, where juries must reach a unanimous verdict.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reuters
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