![]() ![]() Although originally conceived by the Framers for a time when communicating with and summoning senators back to the Capitol might take weeks, it is still valid in a modern age - but only as long as the Senate is in recess. attorney general and a former Office of Legal Counsel lawyer who provided advice to presidents on recess appointment issues, we have defended and will continue to defend the lawful use of the recess appointment power. That is a constitutional abuse of a high order.Īs a former U.S. But never before has a president purported to make a “recess” appointment when the Senate is demonstrably not in recess. Yes, some prior recess appointments have been politically unpopular, and a few have even raised legal questions. It is a breathtaking violation of the separation of powers and the duty of comity that the executive owes to Congress. President Obama’s attempt to unilaterally appoint three people to seats on the National Labor Relations Board and Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (after the Senate blocked action on his nomination) is more than an unconstitutional attempt to circumvent the Senate’s advise-and-consent role. Todd Gaziano worked in the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel under three previous presidents and is director of Heritage’s Center for Legal & Judicial Studies. attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, is chairman of the Center for Legal & Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Read Edwin Meese III’s amicus brief in William Ernest Kuenzel v. Bravin, “ Law-Enforcement Legends Team Up in Death-Penalty Fight,” Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2016.) See New Voices and Innocence. In an amicus brief, Meese calls the withholding of that evidence “the very worst kind of Brady violation, which resulted in condemning to death a defendant whose conviction was obtained in violation of the Constitution and who is very likely actually innocent.” Morgenthau said of Kuenzel, “here’s no possible way he could have committed the murder.” Meese and Morgenthau also share a concern about the quality of representation in capital cases, and are calling for automatic appellate review of the competence of defense counsel. Since the trial, previously-withheld evidence has emerged that supports Kuenzel’s innocence claim, including police notes of an initial interview with Venn in which he said another man was in the car with him, and the grand jury testimony of the passerby in which the girl said that she “couldn’t really see” the faces of the men in the store. Venn agreed and spent only ten years in prison, but Kuenzel maintained his innocence and rejected the deal. Alabama prosecutors offered both men a deal for leniency if they agreed to plead guilty and testify against one another. He was convicted after Venn admitted to having driven the car, but claimed that Kuenzel had actually shot the clerk, and a 16-year-old passenger in a car that was passing by the store testified that she had seen Venn and Kuenzel inside the store. Kuenzel was implicated in the murder after a car belonging to Harvey Venn, a boarder in Kuenzel’s home, was seen near the crime scene. Meese and Morgenthau belong to different political parties and take opposing views on capital punishment, but both believe that Kuenzel was wrongfully convicted and condemned for the 1987 murder of a convenience store clerk and deserves a chance to present new evidence. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, believe that Alabama death row prisoner William Kuenzel is innocent and are urging the U.S. Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, and Robert Morgenthau, the long-time district attorney of Manhattan who served as a U.S. Edwin Meese III (pictured), who served as U.S. ![]()
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