Jones Will Get Day in Court--but Not Immediately

A unanimous Supreme Court has ruled, correctly, that a president has no constitutional claim to temporary immunity from civil lawsuits arising out of incidents that occurred before he took office. But this ruling, based on the sexual harassment suit brought by Paula Corbin Jones against President Clinton, is careful not to deny a trial judge discretion over the timing of such a suit. If a trial would interfere with a president’s official duties, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court, a stay by the trial judge “might be justified by considerations that do not require the recognition of any constitutional immunity.” The judge in the Jones case should ponder that option carefully.

There is no question about Jones’ right to seek redress. In a suit filed in 1994 seeking $700,000 in damages, she alleges that in 1991, while an Arkansas state employee, she was summoned to a hotel room by then-Gov. Clinton and asked to perform a sex act. Clinton denies that and had sought to be shielded from the suit until he leaves office in 2001.

A high court decision in 1972 gave a president immunity from civil suits arising from official actions while in office. But the issue of suits based on pre-presidential private behavior breaks new ground.

The prospect of a civil trial of a president on sex charges and the damaging consequences not just to the individual but to the institution he embodies ought to give even Clinton’s most committed political enemies pause. Paula Jones alleges she was wronged and her reputation was sullied; she demands and deserves her day in court. The Supreme Court has ruled there is no constitutional barrier standing in her way. Instead, the risk to be weighed is how a suit might adversely affect a president’s official duties. The Supreme Court has left that determination to the trial judge.

The arguments for delaying trial are compelling. If a president was confronted by a stream of frivolous or politically motivated litigation, the result could prove not only financially ruinous to him but so distracting and time-consuming that his ability to effectively carry out his official functions would be jeopardized.