Clinton v. Jones
| Clinton v. Jones | |
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| Argued January 13, 1997 Decided May 27, 1997 |
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| Full case name | William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States of America, Petitioner v. Paula Corbin Jones |
| Citations | 520 U.S. 681 (more)
117 S. Ct. 1636; 137 L. Ed. 2d 945; 1997 U.S. LEXIS 3254; 65 U.S.L.W. 4372; 73 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1548; 73 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1549; 70 Empl. Prac. Dec. (CCH) P44,686; 97 Cal. Daily Op. Service 3908; 97 Daily Journal DAR 6669; 10 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 499
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| Prior history | Motion to defer granted, motion for immunity denied, 869 F.Supp. 690 (E.D. Ark. 1994); motion to defer reversed, 72 F.3d 1354 (8th Cir. 1996) |
| Subsequent history | Motion for summary judgment granted, 990 F.Supp. 657 (E.D. Ark. 1998); motion affirmed, 161 F.3d 528 (8th Cir. 1998) |
| Holding | |
| The Constitution does not protect the President from civil litigation involving actions committed before he entered office. | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Stevens, joined by Rehnquist, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg |
| Concurrence | Breyer |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. art. II | |
Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case establishing that a sitting President of the United States has no immunity from civil law litigation against him or her, for acts done before taking office and unrelated to the office.
On May 6, 1994, former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones filed a sexual harassment suit against U.S. President Bill Clinton and former Arkansas State Police Officer Danny Ferguson. She claimed that on May 8, 1991, Clinton, then Governor of Arkansas, propositioned her. David Brock had written, in the January 1994 issue of The American Spectator, that an Arkansas state employee named "Paula" had offered to be Clinton's mistress. According to the story, Ferguson had escorted Jones to Clinton's hotel room, stood guard, and overheard Jones say that she would not mind being Clinton's mistress.
The suit, Jones v. Clinton, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled that a sitting President could not be sued and deferred the case until the conclusion of his term (although she allowed the pre-trial discovery phase of the case to proceed without delay in order to start the trial as soon as Clinton left office).
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