Brian C. Kalt

Brian C. Kalt (born 1972) is an American legal scholar and writer.

Career[]

Kalt has taught at Michigan State University College of Law in East Lansing since July 2000. He received tenure in 2006, and has been a full professor and the Harold Norris Faculty Scholar since 2010.^[1] He teaches Torts and Administrative Law. His research focuses on structural constitutional law, the presidency, and juries.^[2]

Kalt, who received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan,^[1] earned his juris doctor from Yale Law School, where he was an editor on the Yale Law Journal. After law school, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Danny J. Boggs, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.^[2] He has occasionally written op-eds for national newspapers.^[3][4]

The Perfect Crime[]

Kalts 2005 article "The Perfect Crime" argues that it is impossible to properly try major crimes committed in the Idaho portion of Yellowstone National Park because of the Constitution's Vicinage Clause—an area consequently sometimes called the Zone of Death.^[5][6][7] The paper received renewed attention in 2021 with regards to the killing of Gabby Petito.^[8][9] Kalt has stated this loophole does not have legal precedent and "does not make murder legal in the zone."^[10][11]

Impeachment of Donald Trump[]

On the eve of the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump in February 2021, the former president's attorneys filed a brief that made multiple references to a 2001 article on impeachment Kalt had written, asserting he had concluded impeachment of a former president is unconstitutional. Kalt replied “they misrepresent what I wrote quite badly” and that he had actually concluded there is a “solid basis” for post-presidential impeachments.^[12][13] “They suggest that I was endorsing an argument when what I actually did was note that argument—and reject it,” Kalt wrote on Twitter.^[14] In an article for Slate magazine, he elaborated: "In several places, they cited me as though I had concluded something when in fact I had concluded the opposite."^[15][16][17]

The legal brief of the House of Representatives impeachment managers prosecuting former President Donald J. Trump in 2021 cited legal research by Kalt to show that the framers of the Constitution were overwhelmingly likely to have fully endorsed the impeachment of former officials based on the history of impeachment in the new American republic and in Great Britain.^[18]

Selected publications[]

• Unable: The Law, Politics, and Limits of Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment (Oxford University Press 2019).^[19]
• Constitutional Cliffhangers: A Legal Guide for Presidents and Their Enemies (Yale University Press 2012).^[20]
• Sixties Sandstorm: The Fight over Establishment of a Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (Michigan State University Press 2001).^[21]
• Of Death and Deadlocks: Section 4 of the Twentieth Amendment, 54 HARV. J. ON LEGIS. 101 (2017).
• The Ninth Amendment in Congress, 40 PEPPERDINE L. REV. 75 (2012).
• Tabloid Constitutionalism: How a Bill Doesn’t Become a Law, 96 GEO. L.J. 1971 (2008).
• Keeping Recess Appointments in Their Place, 101 NW. U. L. REV. COLLOQUY 88 (2007), http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawreview/colloquy/2007/3/
• Crossing Eight Mile: Juries of the Vicinage and County-Line Criminal Buffer Statutes, 80 WASH. L. REV. 271 (2005).
• The Perfect Crime, 93 GEO. L.J. 675 (2005), reprinted in THE GREEN BAG ALMANAC AND READER 2006 in the category of “Exemplary Legal Writing 2005.”^[22]
• The Exclusion of Felons from Jury Service, 53 AM. U. L. REV. 65 (2003).
• The Constitutional Case for the Impeachability of Former Federal Officials: An Analysis of the Law, History, and Practice of Late Impeachment, 6 TEX. REV. L. & POL. 13 (2001).
• Note, Pardon Me?: The Constitutional Case Against Presidential Self-Pardons, 106 YALE L.J. 779 (1996).

See also[]

• Zone of Death (Yellowstone)

References[]

External links[]

• MSU Faculty Profile