Cite as: 506 U. S. 224 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
balances. In our constitutional system, impeachment was designed to be the only check on the Judicial Branch by the Legislature. On the topic of judicial accountability, Hamilton wrote:
"The precautions for their responsibility are comprised in the article respecting impeachments. They are liable to be impeached for mal-conduct by the house of representatives, and tried by the senate, and if convicted, may be dismissed from office and disqualified for holding any other. This is the only provision on the point, which is consistent with the necessary independence of the judicial character, and is the only one which we find in our own constitution in respect to our own judges." Id., No. 79, at 532-533 (emphasis added).
Judicial involvement in impeachment proceedings, even if only for purposes of judicial review, is counterintuitive because it would eviscerate the "important constitutional check" placed on the Judiciary by the Framers. See id., No. 81, at 545. Nixon's argument would place final reviewing authority with respect to impeachments in the hands of the same body that the impeachment process is meant to regulate.2
Nevertheless, Nixon argues that judicial review is necessary in order to place a check on the Legislature. Nixon fears that if the Senate is given unreviewable authority to interpret the Impeachment Trial Clause, there is a grave risk that the Senate will usurp judicial power. The Framers anticipated this objection and created two constitutional
2 Nixon contends that justiciability should not hang on the mere fact that the Judiciary's interest may be implicated or affected by the legislative action in question. In support, he cites our decisions in Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361 (1989), and Morrison v. Olson, 487 U. S. 654 (1988). These cases do not advance his argument, however, since neither addressed the issue of justiciability. More importantly, neither case involved a situation in which judicial review would remove the only check placed on the Judicial Branch by the Framers.
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