In a federal impeachment trial, the jury is the United States Senate. All 100 senators hear the evidence, weigh the arguments, and vote on whether to convict the accused official. The Constitution splits the process between the two chambers of Congress: the House of Representatives brings the charges and prosecutes the case, and the Senate sits as the court that decides guilt. A conviction takes a two-thirds supermajority of the senators present.1Constitution Annotated. Article I Section 3 – Clause 6 Impeachment Trials
What Senators Do as Jurors
Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution gives the Senate the “sole Power to try all Impeachments.”1Constitution Annotated. Article I Section 3 – Clause 6 Impeachment Trials Every senator participates. There is no selection process, no jury screening, and no one is excused for bias. The political nature of the proceeding is built into the design.
Before the trial begins, each senator swears an oath to deliver “impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.”2Constitution Annotated. ArtI.S3.C6.4 Oath or Affirmation Requirement in Impeachment Trials The oath has been part of the process since the first impeachment proceeding in 1798 and has changed little since.
The senators then function much like a jury: they listen to testimony, review evidence, and consider both sides. But the resemblance stops there. A criminal jury deliberates in private and must return a unanimous verdict. Senators deliberate openly in the chamber, and each casts an individual, public vote on every article of impeachment.
Who Else Is in the Room
Understanding the jury also means understanding who the jury is watching. Three other roles fill out the trial.
The House Managers
The House of Representatives supplies the prosecution. Only the House can formally charge a federal official with misconduct, a power the Constitution calls the “sole Power of Impeachment.”3Constitution Annotated. Overview of Impeachment If a simple majority of the House approves at least one article of impeachment, the official is impeached, which is roughly the equivalent of being indicted.4United States Senate. About Impeachment
The House then appoints a group of its own members, called impeachment managers, to try the case. They walk into the Senate chamber, present evidence, examine witnesses, and argue that the conduct meets the constitutional standard of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”5Constitution Annotated. Article II Section 4 – Impeachment
The Defense
The accused official hires their own legal team. There is no constitutional right to a court-appointed attorney in an impeachment trial because it is a political proceeding rather than a criminal one. In practice, impeached officials have assembled counsel of their own choosing, sometimes prominent trial lawyers and sometimes attorneys who already represented them elsewhere. The defense presents its case after the House managers, cross-examines witnesses, and argues that the charges do not warrant removal.
The Presiding Officer
Every trial needs someone in the judge’s chair, and who fills it depends on who is being tried.
When a sitting president is on trial, the Chief Justice of the United States presides.1Constitution Annotated. Article I Section 3 – Clause 6 Impeachment Trials The Vice President would normally preside over the Senate but stands to benefit directly from removing the president, so the Constitution routes the job to the Chief Justice to remove that conflict.6Legal Information Institute. Historical Background on Impeachment Trials
For any other official, whether a federal judge, a cabinet secretary, or a former president, the Vice President or the President pro tempore of the Senate typically presides. When former President Trump faced his second impeachment trial in 2021, after he had already left office, the President pro tempore presided rather than the Chief Justice.6Legal Information Institute. Historical Background on Impeachment Trials
The presiding officer rules on procedural questions and keeps order, but the jury itself remains the Senate.
What It Takes to Convict
After both sides have made their case, the Senate deliberates and votes separately on each article. Conviction requires a two-thirds supermajority of the senators present.1Constitution Annotated. Article I Section 3 – Clause 6 Impeachment Trials With all 100 senators in the chamber, that means 67 votes. If some senators are absent, the threshold drops proportionally, because the rule always counts two-thirds of those present rather than two-thirds of the full body.
If the Senate fails to reach that supermajority on every article, the official is acquitted and stays in office. The framers set the bar high on purpose, to keep temporary partisan majorities from removing officials at will.
What Happens After the Vote
The Constitution keeps the consequences of impeachment inside the political system. The primary penalty is immediate removal from office. The Senate may then hold a separate vote to bar the convicted individual from ever holding federal office again.7Constitution Annotated. Article I Section 3 – Clause 7 By longstanding Senate practice, that disqualification vote requires only a simple majority.
Removal and disqualification are the only penalties the Senate can impose. No prison sentence, no fine, no probation. A convicted official can still face criminal prosecution in the regular courts for any laws they broke, and the Constitution explicitly preserves that possibility: the convicted party “shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”7Constitution Annotated. Article I Section 3 – Clause 7
The Senate’s verdict is final. There is no appeal to any court. In Nixon v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that challenges to Senate impeachment trials are nonjusticiable political questions, meaning courts have no authority to review them.8Justia Law. Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993) Whatever the Senate decides as jury, it decides alone.
How Often the Senate Actually Convicts
The House has impeached 21 federal officials since 1789.9Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives. List of Individuals Impeached by the House of Representatives The Senate has convicted eight, all of them federal judges. Three presidents have been impeached — Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump, who was impeached twice — and none has been convicted. Some officials resigned before the Senate could finish a trial, and one case was dismissed without a trial. In more than two centuries, fewer than half of the officials the Senate has tried have been removed, which is roughly what the two-thirds rule was designed to produce.