A grant of Congressional immunity makes a subsequent criminal prosecution almost impossible, as the government learned after the convictions of John M. Poindexter and Oliver L. North were overturned in the Iran-contra case.
Leading organizations filed amicus briefs on behalf of the advocacy community and victims in the next two confrontation cases in the Court (Davis/Hammon and Giles), urging the Court not to define the new standard in a manner that made domestic violence and child abuse prosecutions virtually impossible.
Legal experts say, however, that prosecution is virtually impossible because, in most cases, New York's statute of limitations requires that charges be brought before a victim turns 23.
"Many are operating out of countries where prosecution may be impossible, and that gives them the confidence to flaunt their products on image-driven social platforms such as Instagram.
The problem is that rape cases are rarely clear-cut, experts say, which is part of what makes their already elevated threshold for prosecution an almost impossible hurdle for victims to clear.
"These are just giant seagoing hotels," said Robert C. Bundy, the United States attorney for Alaska, who said that the new legislation would make prosecutions difficult or impossible all over the United States by contradicting older laws.
Another pathologist testified for the prosecution that it was impossible to determine the time exactly.
Legal experts across the political spectrum said the statements would make it difficult for the incoming administration to avoid a criminal investigation of torture, even as most also say a successful prosecution might well be impossible.
For as things are, assisting in or encouraging suicide remains a criminal offence, indeed a crime tantamount to murder, but the director of public prosecutions has compiled a list of considerations that will make prosecution unlikely (but not impossible) when a person helps another to die at his or her own request.
It's also that it is a strategic disaster for the US, drawing sympathy to terrorist groups and swelling their ranks, placing American civilians and servicemen captured abroad at risk of the same treatment, undermining strategic cooperation with other nations, and making the future prosecution of terrorist suspects impossible.
