The Senate Government Relations and Oversight (GRO) committee will hold a preliminary hearing for the impeachment charges against Student Body Treasurer John Taylor Wills Tuesday at 7 p.m.

The purpose of the preliminary hearing is for GRO to discern whether there is “probable cause” to believe the impeachment charges are merited.

With the last preliminary impeachment hearing occurring in 2006, little precedence exists for the particulars of how the hearing will run. Because of this, Senate President Mitchell Moravec has decided not to permit any physical evidence nor witness testimony during the preliminary phase of the trial.

“We’d prefer to be proactive as possible in fielding concerns and questions to this, and making sure we avoid any intricacy or oversight that may hinder the overall goal of objectivity, transparency and fair justice,” Moravec said. “We want both parties to have a clear understanding and perhaps open discussion on what is being alleged.”

Student Government rarely invokes its punitive powers, specifically in the context of impeachment, but some precedent exists from impeachment proceedings from as recent as the previous decade.

In 2005, Senator Scott Stephenson was impeached for his involvement in the theft of vouchers allocated to students for basketball and football games. The following year, Stephenson was impeached for excessive absences in Student Senate but resigned after proceedings for the impeachment began.

Student Body President Whil Piavis, more commonly known during his tenure in office as the Pirate Captain, faced scrutiny and impeachment charges in 2006, which the Technician Editorial Board condemned during the process.

Piavis was famous for his persona as the Pirate Captain, where he dressed and spoke like a pirate during all Student Government proceedings.

The bill of charges, which was sponsored by 10 senators, cited 21 specific illegal or unethical actions committed by Piavis during his term, which was set to end just weeks after the impeachment proceedings were initiated.

“I wasn’t really surprised — the rumors had been there all year,” Piavis said then about the proceedings. “Once I started reading it, I was like, ‘This is ridiculous.'”

Piavis’ charges were referred to the Government Operations Committee, which today is known as the Government Relations and Oversight Committee, whose membership consisted of five of the six sponsoring senators on the bill of charges.

“I did see how that could be viewed as unfair,” Student Senate President Forrest Hinton said at the time.

In a shocking blow to the proceedings, the day following the referral to the Government Operations Committee saw a memorandum from then Vice Chancellor Tom Stafford, which informed the committee that the university was reviewing the “due process considerations afforded by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution” in reference to the committee’s impeachment proceedings.

As previously reported by Technician, Stafford left the committee without entertaining questions, prompting anger and confusion by the committee.

“Dust the damn thing for anthrax,” said Senator Erich Fabricius of the written statement Stafford had left with the committee.

Just two weeks later, impeachment proceedings against Piavis were halted completely, with many in Student Government feeling that the decision was a result of Stafford’s involvement.

“It feels as if I’m being played like a puppet,” Student Body Treasurer Seneca Toms said in 2006. “We are putting out a label saying we have student leadership, but it’s really just a label.”

Stafford, however, defended his decision to issue the memorandum.

“The Government Operations committee[‘s] considering the resolution demonstrates a clear conflict of interest, when the prosecutor will also be the judge,” Stafford told Technician at the time.

Stephenson, who was impeached twice during his time in Student Senate, was upset with what he perceived as administrative influence in the punitive process.

“This is Student Government, not administration government,” Stephenson said in 2006. “It’s what we make it — the administration is here for oversight, not dictatorship.”

Just one year later, rumors of impeachment for Student Body President Bobby Mills began to swirl, but eventually the only sanction sought against Mills would be censure, which failed to even reach the Government Operations committee in a 34-17 vote.

This attempt stemmed from Mills’ comments about the possibility of disbanding the Association of Student Governments.

Senator Scott Lassiter, a second-year studying political science at the time, disagreed with the scrutiny towards Mills.

“I wouldn’t vote to impeach him,” Lassiter said in 2007. “I haven’t seen that he’s done anything impeachable. It shouldn’t be a matter of whether you agree with someone’s policies. It should be whether or not a person is doing his job. I wish people in Student Government would spend as much time working for the betterment of the student body as they spend fighting each other.”