With 'Insurrection Act,' Trump has 'fairly sweeping authority' - NYU Law professor

Record ID: 1555379

  • Title: With 'Insurrection Act,' Trump has 'fairly sweeping authority' - NYU Law professor
  • Date: 2nd June 2020
  • Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JUNE 2, 2020) (REUTERS VIA ZOOM) (SOUNDBITE) (English) CONSTITUTIONAL LAW PROFESSOR AT NYU (NEW YORK UNIVERSITY), RICHARD PILDES, SAYING: "Now, if you have a situation where the governors don't want federal military in there, legally, there's nothing they could do to stop that. I suppose they could go to court and try to argue the preside
  • Embargoed: 16th June 2020 22:59
  • Keywords: Don't Shoot George Floyd Hands Up Insurrection Act LA Riots Richard Pildes martial law street violence
  • Location: WASHINGTON, DC + NEW YORK, NEW YORK + MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA + LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
  • City: WASHINGTON, DC + NEW YORK, NEW YORK + MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA + LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Crime/Law/Justice
  • Reuters ID: LVA008CGOHO3R
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: President Donald Trump has increasingly turned to militaristic rhetoric at a time of national upheaval. And the option of implementing a 213-year old US law would grant the US leader "fairly sweeping authority" to try and restore order in the country, as a constitutional law professor told Reuters Tuesday (June 2).
    Protests have swept U.S. cities since the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American who died after a white policeman pinned his neck under a knee for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis.
    Trump on Monday threatened to send active duty U.S. troops to stamp out the civil unrest.
    To deploy the U.S. military for law enforcement purposes, Trump would need to invoke the Insurrection Act - something last done in 1992 in response to the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles.
    Initially enacted in 1807, the law permits the president to send in U.S. armed forces to suppress a domestic insurrection that has hindered the normal enforcement of U.S. law.
    And according to Richard Pildes, a law professor at New York University, the law "puts a lot of hands in the power of the president" to determine the application. "The law does not say, in other words, that if the objective facts are such that this is necessary, then the president has this power. The law says when the president considers these circumstances to be present."
    As a result, US citizens could face the novel sight of a US soldier "enforcing curfews… protecting property… dealing with potential arson issues," Pildes said.
    Other legal analysts argue the measure allows for a less expansive use of federal power.
    Prior presidents who have turned to the 19th Century law include Presidents John Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower. They used the law to ensure newly enacted civil rights laws took hold in resistant areas. So at Eisenhower's command in 1957, federal troops famously summoned the National Guard to accompany nine black students as they attended Central High School after Governor Orval Faubus denied them access.
    More recently, the law was implemented in 1992 to help quell the deadly riots that followed the acquittal of four Los Angeles police officers in the beating of black motorist Rodney King.
    "The federal force was there for a relatively short period of time," Pildes said of the '92 deployment. "We're speculating because the president [Trump] hasn't even invoked the act here yet. But I would assume that it would be on a very, very short term basis at most."
    But if the law is invoked, and local and state authorities resist, they stand little legal chance, according to Pildes.
    "Because the authority delegated is very broad, it's hard to see the governors winning a claim like that," he said.
    (Production by: Dan Fastenberg)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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