Presidents Can Be Impeached Because Benjamin Franklin Thought It Was Better Than Assassination

[cos dem]

12. My guess, execution implies a trial, resulting in conviction.

If you define the chief executive as being "unable to be tried" in the conventional sense, then without impeachment, there is no conviction.

You could go back to Cromwell and Charles I to think about whether ad-hoc trials of the executive are a good thing or a bad thing. In this case, of course, one could say Charles was executed, because he was tried and convicted. But was the trial itself legal?

In our case, I'm not sure exactly what the best way to handle this is, but I do think there should be a mechanism by which some entity (Congress? voters?) can determine that the executive should stand trial for conventional lawbreaking (meaning conventional jury trial), in addition to the existing impeachment process.