Pardons

[The Don]

Let's assume that a law is unjust and many folk are being punished for breaking said law.

I am suggesting that a bill should be generated to rescind that law. This passes through the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, and then stamped by the president.

In consequence all who have been convicted of breaking that law are pardoned by the courts. This is the way it should work in my opinion.

If you've got an obstructionist party in the Senate and/or House that bill may never see the light of day no matter how justified.

It may also take months or even years to get the bill passed even if it makes it onto the legislative agenda. Why force people to stay in prison while the bill meanders its way through the legislature ?

 

[Suddenly]

If you've got an obstructionist party in the Senate and/or House that bill may never see the light of day no matter how justified.

It may also take months or even years to get the bill passed even if it makes it onto the legislative agenda. Why force people to stay in prison while the bill meanders its way through the legislature ?

Right.

In a carceral state removing one of the few avenues for redress of injustice is a bad move no matter how corruptly that power can be used.

In the US, actual innocence isn't always a grounds to have a settled conviction/sentence overturned. There is a patchwork of post conviction law the meanders so much that even when it works out it takes years. Things like pardons can be a valuable short circuit.

Legislatures, when they repeal crimes or reduce sentences usually do not make that retroactive to past convictions.

The last thing the US needs is to remove this. Bad pardons aren't worth making the system even harsher.

 

[Dr. Keith]

The last thing the US needs is to remove this. Bad pardons aren't worth making the system even harsher.

I agree with you, but there is some value to everyone playing by the same rules. An overly harsh system is never corrected if the people who could correct it are instead allowed to sidestep it.

If a law is overly harsh and a rich person is impacted they have two means of redress: advocate for a change in the law or advocate for a pardon. One of those is quicker and cheaper and does nothing to make society as a whole better.

I'm reminded of proposed laws to make all recipients of welfare subject to random drug testing. A counter argument was that if we were worried about druggies getting government money then we should be drug testing all college students receiving financial aid. Make the harsh aspects of an unjust law apply to more people and their harshness becomes more evident and less tolerable.

And to repeat, I am only talking about theory. Practically, there have been too many good uses of the pardon to let a few bad ones spoil the idea.

 

[Suddenly]

I agree with you, but there is some value to everyone playing by the same rules. An overly harsh system is never corrected if the people who could correct it are instead allowed to sidestep it.

If a law is overly harsh and a rich person is impacted they have two means of redress: advocate for a change in the law or advocate for a pardon. One of those is quicker and cheaper and does nothing to make society as a whole better.

I'm reminded of proposed laws to make all recipients of welfare subject to random drug testing. A counter argument was that if we were worried about druggies getting government money then we should be drug testing all college students receiving financial aid. Make the harsh aspects of an unjust law apply to more people and their harshness becomes more evident and less tolerable.

And to repeat, I am only talking about theory. Practically, there have been too many good uses of the pardon to let a few bad ones spoil the idea.

I'm not big on that theory because these people aren't in the same universe when it comes to the criminal justice system.

Rich people rarely have laws enforced against them in the first place, and when they do it is because they beyond deserve it. Or they are getting rung up by the SEC or some other crime of the privileged.

The poor suffer mostly in terms of procedure rather than what is or is not criminal. At least as to offenses dire enough so that a pardon is relevant. Some rich guy who was so blatant as to stock manipulation to eat a conviction isn't going to react to not getting a pardon by wanting reform in the area of police interrogation or advocating for better funded indigent defense. Let 100 of those jokers go if it means rectifying one real injustice.