Impeachment can be based on non-criminal misconduct
Kentucky Law Journal (2025) (forthcoming)
Clark D. Cunningham & Ute Römer-Barron
Appendix
"high misdemeanor" has largely disappeared from American vocabulary
"high misdemeanor" in Founding Era texts
-Search results from Founders Online (annotated)
-Search results from Corpus of Founding Era American English (COFEA) (annotated)
Madison papers: usage of "other noun + noun"
Madison papers: usage of "high noun + noun"
Corpus evidence that "crime" and "misdemeanor" were not used as synonyms
- Corpus of Founding Era Amercan English (COFEA)
-- Search results for "crim* or misdem*" (63 examples)
-- Search results for "misdem* or crim*" (1 example)
-Founders Online
-- Search results for "crim* or misdem*" (24 examples)
-- Collocate comparison between "crime" and "misdemeanor"
Records of the Federal Convention of 1787
-- July 20, 1787
-- August 28, 1787 (image) (text)
-- September 8, 1787
Articles of Impeachment
-- Judge John Pickering (1804)
-- Judge James Peck (1830)
-- President Andrew Johnson (1868)
-- William Belknap (1876)
-- Judge Charles Swayne (1905)
-- Judge Robert Archbald (1912)
-- Judge George English (1926)
-- Judge Halsted Ritter (1936)
"high misdemeanor" has largely disappeared from American vocabulary
"high misdemeanor" in Founding Era texts
-Search results from Founders Online (annotated)
-Search results from Corpus of Founding Era American English (COFEA) (annotated)
Madison papers: usage of "other noun + noun"
Madison papers: usage of "high noun + noun"
Randolph's 1681 Articles of high Misdemeanor
Accusation of High Misdemeanor against President Thomas Jefferson (1809)
An Act to define and punish certain Conspiracies (July 31, 1861)