Consider the most extremist act President Barack Obama has taken: he put an American on a secret kill list, sent a drone to find the man, and blew him up. No judge. No jury. Just a summary execution. The target might have deserved to die. But he had a right to a trial, even in absentia. The Fifth Amendment guarantees that no one will be deprived of life without due process.

When Obama killed that man, Anwar al-Awlaki, he violated the Constitution and set a dangerous precedent: An American can be killed for a capital crime without being convicted. He need merely stand accused by the White House.

Before taking this radical action, President Obama sought legal cover. The name of the lawyer who approved the extrajudicial killing of an American is David Barron. Normally, the lawyer’s name wouldn’t matter. Washington, D.C., is full of lawyers who’ll enable the president, whatever it is he wants to do.

But it’s important to remember Barron’s name because, after he helped to violate due-process rights, Obama offered him a lifetime appointment as a federal judge. His job will be to interpret the Constitution and to safeguard the rights of Americans. I do not think he is qualified for the position, given his role subverting the Fifth Amendment. But the U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination last week.

Judge David Barron will preside.

He was supported by almost every Democrat, including California’s delegation: Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Would a majority of their constituents want them advancing the career of a lawyer who enabled a drone strike on an American? During the Bush years, the Democratic Party, including Barack Obama, complained that it was unlawful to merely detain Americans accused of terrorism without giving them an opportunity to prove their innocence.

Now Democrats are OK with the outright killing of suspected terrorists without trial?

The hypocrisy is staggering.

Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, vocally opposed Judge Barron’s confirmation, and explained why his legal work on extrajudicial killing is so glaringly imprudent. To protect the innocent, Paul said, America “places the burden of proof on the prosecution. We require the government to collect and present enough compelling evidence to a jury – not to one person who works for the president, not to a bunch of people who work in secret, but to a jury.

“Then we go even further. We require that the accused is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. We set a very high bar for conviction and an extremely high bar for execution. And even after doing all of the right things, we’ve still sometimes got it wrong and executed people after jury trials mistakenly, erroneously. But now we’re talking about not even having the protection of a trial. We’re talking about only accusations. Are we comfortable killing American citizens, no matter how awful or heinous the crime they’re accused of, are we comfortable killing them based on accusations that no jury has reviewed?”

Sen. Paul is keeping his head while those around him are losing theirs.

At present, too many Americans are comfortable with extrajudicial killings. Many aren’t aware that Obama has carried them out against American citizens. Others assume that anyone executed in this fashion must be a bad guy. Yet it is folly to believe that politicians can wield a power as awesome as extrajudicial executions without abusing it. If abuse hasn’t happened already, it will occur in the future unless this precedent is repudiated.

Our constitutional system was designed to deny anyone unchecked power so extreme.

Judge Barron evidently thinks otherwise. And he’ll now be interpreting the Constitution for years to come, thanks to Senate Democrats who’ve lost sight of the Fifth Amendment’s importance, just as Republicans lost sight of its importance when a GOP president was in charge. If neither party will consistently defend the Bill of Rights, what is to become of it?

Staff opinion columnist Conor Friedersdorf also is a staff writer for the Atlantic.