No. of Recommendations: 2
Empty Wheel on Maduro's Immunity:
As I’ll explain below (and mapped in this table), the superseding indictment against Nicolás Maduro and his wife unsealed yesterday is a more political document than the one that first charged Maduro in 2020. One important difference lies in how DOJ attempted to claim Maduro is not the leader of Venezuela, which will be a key element required to overcome any immunity claim Maduro will surely invoke.
There's a nice chart of the charges comparing the two different ones. If you wish to read more about the immunity claim drop down to this capitalized bolded header:
Disavowing democracy in attempting to negate Maduro’s immunity claim
They are going to claim that he didn't win the election and therefore has no immunity. This is notable:
Back then, Noriega argued that he enjoyed head-of-state immunity, and the executive branch argued that he didn’t because the United States had not recognized him as a legitimate leader of Panama. That gives us a hint as to what is likely to happen in this case. My guess is that the United States will argue that it’s never recognized Maduro as a legitimate leader of Venezuela and therefore he doesn’t receive immunity. And the courts are going to be in the position of having to decide whether they defer to the executive branch’s determination that he’s not head of state or whether they make an independent assessment of his legitimacy as a leader of Venezuela.
How did the Noriega case play out?
In the Noriega case, the courts deferred to the executive branch.
So it is likely the courts will decided Maduro has no immunity, especially if it gets to our Supremes.
