It will take many, many cases to elaborate on what defines an official act and what exactly decides immunity, and in the process we could see a lot of potential what-I’d-say is overreach.
It is far too early to declare that there will be zero side effects from this — as with literally any Supreme Court ruling.
We’ve already seen what qualified immunity gets us, and I’d bet many people didn’t expect it to go that way.
A President, if they act in an "official" capacity, cannot later be charged with a crime for something they did in that official capacity. Not "can offer being an official as a defense", "cannot be charged".
What is an official capacity? Well there's the traditional stuff like vetoes, appointments, and the like, but there's a lot of stuff that is far more nebulous. Does the President act in an official capacity when telling the Vice President what to do with regards to certifying an electoral college result? Well, if that's official, Trump has to be more-or-less let go for what happened on January 6th.
We are now basically saying that it's up to a judge - who may or may not have been appointed by the President in question - to decide whether something was an official act. If it is? Welp, sorry the President's wanton order violated your Constitutional rights, but no trial.
Your last paragraph is closer to accurate, except a president doesn't just "appoint" a judge. They have to be voted in by the senate. So, if the president is a crook and nominates a crook and the senate is full of crooks and vote yes to have said crook become a judge, then yes really bad stuff can happen. But if the president is a crook and the majority of the senate are crooks, it's already all over.
Charge every act of violence ordered in places war is undeclared as war crimes?
If not, the things they have on Trump seem like really small potatoes to zero in on.
