High crimes and misdemeanours

This article is about the legal term. For the Ann Coulter book, see High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton. For the Woody Allen film, see Crimes and Misdemeanors. For the 2002 film, see High Crimes.

The charge of high crimes and misdemeanors covers allegations of misconduct that do not fall under a more clearly defined impeachable offence; e.g., high treason. This charge occurs only in cases of parliamentary impeachment and is unrelated to any offence in criminal law.

Britain

The impeachment of the King's Chancellor, Michael de la Pole, 1st Earl of Suffolk in 1386 was the first case to use this charge. One charge under this heading alleged that de la Pole broke a promise to Parliament. He had promised to follow the advice of a committee regarding improvement of the kingdom. Another charge said that he failed to pay a ransom for the town of Ghent, and that because of that the town fell to the French.

The 1450 impeachment of William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, a descendant of Michael's, was next to allege charges under this title. He was charged with using his influence to obstruct justice, cronyism, and wasting public money. Other charges against him included acts of high treason.

Impeachment fell out of use after 1459 but Parliament revived it in the early 17th century to bring the King's ministers to book. In 1621, Parliament impeached the King's Attorney General, Sir Henry Yelverton for high crimes and misdemeanors. The charges included failing to prosecute after starting lawsuits and using authority before it was properly his.

After the Restoration the scope of the charge grew to include negligence, and abuse of power or trust while in office. For example, charges in the impeachment of Edward Russell, 1st Earl of Orford in 1701 included many violations of trust and his position. In this case, he abused his position in the Privy Council to make profits for himself; as Chief of the Navy he embezzled funds; and, as Lord High Admiral of England he got a commission for the pirate William Kidd.

United States

High crimes and misdemeanors is a phrase from Section 4 of Article Two of the United States Constitution: "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

"High" in the legal and common parlance of the eighteenth century of "high crimes" signifies when a person uses their official position or power to be above the law or manipulate criminal laws that serve a good purpose that are made legal. A high crime is one that can only be done by someone in a unique position of authority, which is political in character, who does things to circumvent justice. The phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" when used together was a common phrase at the time the U.S. Constitution was written and did not mean any stringent or difficult criteria for determining guilt. It meant the opposite. The phrase was historically used to cover a very broad range of crimes.

In the Washington Post reprinting of the Judiciary Committee's review of Impeachment in 1974, it states, ""High Crimes and Misdemeanors" has traditionally been considered a "term of art," like such other constitutional phrases as "levying war" and "due process." The Supreme Court has held that such phrases must be construed, not according to modern usage, but according to what the farmers meant when they adopted them. Chief Justice Marshall wrote of another such phrase:

"It is a technical term. It is used in a very old statute of that country whose language is our language, and whose laws form the substratum of our laws. It is scarcely conceivable that the term was not employed by the framers of our constitution in the sense which had been affixed to it by those from whom we borrowed it.

The convention adopted “high crimes and misdemeanors” with little discussion. Most of the framers knew the phrase well. Since 1386, the English parliament had used “high crimes and misdemeanors” as one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor it, helping “suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,” granting warrants without cause, and bribery. Some of these charges were crimes. Others were not. The one common denominator in all these accusations was that the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve."

As can be found in historical references] of the period, the phrase in its original meaning is best interpreted as "for whatever reason whatsoever". High indicates a type of very serious crime, and misdemeanors indicates crimes that are minor. Therefore this phrase covers all or any crime that abuses office. Benjamin Franklin determined that the power of impeachment and removal was necessary for those times when the Executive "rendered himself obnoxious," and the Constitution should provide for the "regular punishment of the Executive when his conduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal when he should be unjustly accused." James Madison said, "...impeachment... was indispensible" to defend the community against "the incapacity, negligence or perfidy of the chief Magistrate." With a single executive, Madison argued, unlike a legislature whose collective nature provided security, "loss of capacity or corruption was more within the compass of probable events, and either of them might be fatal to the Republic."

"Prior to the Clinton investigation, the House had begun impeachment proceedings against only 17 officials —one U.S. senator, two presidents, one cabinet member, and 13 federal judges."

The very difficult case of impeaching someone in the House of Representatives and removing that person in the Senate by a vote of two-thirds majority in both houses was meant to be the check to balance against efforts to easily remove people from office for minor reasons that could easily be determined by the standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors". It was George Mason who offered up the term "high crimes and misdemeanors" as one of the criteria to remove public officials who abuse their office. Their original intentions can be gleaned by the phrases and words that were proposed before, such as "high misdemeanor", "maladministration", or "other crime". Edmund Randolf said impeachment should be reserved for those who "misbehave". Cotesworth Pinkney said, It should be reserved "...for those who behave amiss, or betray their public trust." As can be seen from all these references to the term "high crimes and misdemeanors", there is no concrete definition for it, except to allow people to remove an official for office for subjective reasons entirely.

Alexander Hamilton said, "...those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself."

The first impeachment conviction by the United States Senate was in 1804 of John Pickering, a judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, for chronic intoxication. Federal judges have been impeached and removed from office for tax evasion, conspiracy to solicit a bribe, and making false statements to a grand jury.

In the impeachment of Bill Clinton in the late 1990s for perjury, the exact meaning of the term high crimes and misdemeanors became the subject of debate. A particular subject of debate is exactly what rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors. Some felt that the act of perjury, a federal crime, rose to that level. Others felt that this particular act of perjury, while illegal, did not reach that level because the lie was specifically in regard to a matter of personal infidelity and that the questioning that led to it was allegedly politically-motivated.

See also

• High misdemeanor