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Pardons

JoeMorgue said:
Okay but here's the thing.

Richard Nixon - Pardoned/commuted/rescinded the convictions/sentences of 926 people.
Gerald Ford - 409
Jimmy Carter - 566 (not including the blanket pardon of Vietnam War draft evaders)
Ronald Reagan - 406
George H.W. Bush - 77
Bill Clinton - 459
George W. Bush - 200
Barack Obama - 1,927
Donald Trump - 94 (as of this post.)

Again where the political traction going to come from to get rid of something both sides have used this much?
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But the vast majority of Obama's pardons were in his second term. As was Clinton's.

Also, it should be noted almost none or none of Trump's pardons came through the normal process of the pardon attorney's office.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Okay but here's the thing.

Richard Nixon - Pardoned/commuted/rescinded the convictions/sentences of 926 people.
Gerald Ford - 409
Jimmy Carter - 566 (not including the blanket pardon of Vietnam War draft evaders)
Ronald Reagan - 406
George H.W. Bush - 77
Bill Clinton - 459
George W. Bush - 200
Barack Obama - 1,927
Donald Trump - 94 (as of this post.)

Again where the political traction going to come from to get rid of something both sides have used this much?
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And In most states Governors have the power to pardon for state offenses. It's an old tradition.
 
I think the power of pardnn needs to be refromed, but I don't think getting rid of it altogether is a good idea.
 
dudalb said:
I think the power of pardnn needs to be refromed, but I don't think getting rid of it altogether is a good idea.
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Agree.

1. Only a person who has been charged and found guilty of an offence should be eligible to receive a Presidential pardon, and only for that offence.

2. The DoJ Pardons office can recommend a pardon, which would then need to be ratified by a simple majority vote of both the House and the Senate before being sent to the President for approval or non-approval as he sees fit.

3. The President can ask the DoJ to recommend a pardon, and if they agree, the recommendation needs to be ratified by a simple majority vote of both the House and the Senate before being sent to the President for approval

4. No recommendation for a pardon should be allowed from election day to inauguration day..e. during the lame duck period.
 
smartcooky said:
Agree.

1. Only a person who has been charged and found guilty of an offence should be eligible to receive a Presidential pardon, and only for that offence.

2. The DoJ Pardons office can recommend a pardon, which would then need to be ratified by a simple majority vote of both the House and the Senate before being sent to the President for approval or non-approval as he sees fit.

3. The President can ask the DoJ to recommend a pardon, and if they agree, the recommendation needs to be ratified by a simple majority vote of both the House and the Senate before being sent to the President for approval

4. No recommendation for a pardon should be allowed from election day to inauguration day..e. during the lame duck period.
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No executive can pardon themselves or immediate family or individuals with quid pro quo possibilities.
 
Segnosaur said:
I think the principle of separation of political power and the legal system is good, and yet we have this anomaly. Another is the appointment of judges by political leaders.
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Well, how else could you selected judges?
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In other parts of the world judges are mostly chosen by their would-be peers based on merits after having worked themselves up the system. Courts are thereby self-sustaining and independent of political interests.

Right now in the EU, Poland is in hot waters precisely because they have begun having judges appointed by politicians. It does nothing good for the justice system.
 
No one should be able to pardon anyone with even the slightest relation to himself or his/her actions in the past. I have no idea why this is even a discussion.

The pardon power as is it today is a travesty. A president could possibly pardon someone who killed his political opponent and people could do nothing about it other than being "concerned".

This unchecked pardon power has no place in a country which claims to exist under the rule of law.
 
dudalb said:
I think the power of pardnn needs to be refromed, but I don't think getting rid of it altogether is a good idea.
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I agree, it needs to be brought back to Wiltshire :p

As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the power of pardon is very useful in cases where the courts either won't reverse verdicts (for example due to the fact that the defendants are not dead) or where the time taken to reverse the verdict would be unreasonable (for example it's clear that the person is innocent but it would take months or years for the case to make it through the courts).

If it's used to reward allies and bail out cronies then it's being mis-used IMO and Presidents doing this should be criticised. In these days of hyper-partisanship, it's likely that any criticism would be perceived as being partisan and therefore it would be devalued. :(
 
Tommok said:
No one should be able to pardon anyone with even the slightest relation to himself or his/her actions in the past. I have no idea why this is even a discussion.

...
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an argument could be made that the President should be able to protect him/herself from a hostile judiciary that is using their relations to put pressure on the Administration.
 
Thor 2 said:
Trump's fragrant abuse of his privilege to grant pardons brings this to mind.

I just wonder why a head of state should be given this privilege. How did this come about and what is the reasoning behind it?
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Legal Eagle, a legal commentator, reports that Hamilton suggested that the presidential pardon power existed to swiftly defuse tensions during a time of national crisis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNZc9H54eBI

He gives the example of Johnson pardoning all Confederate soldiers following the Civil War.
 
acbytesla said:
But the vast majority of Obama's pardons were in his second term. As was Clinton's.

Also, it should be noted almost none or none of Trump's pardons came through the normal process of the pardon attorney's office.
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I don't see what difference either of those caveats is supposed to make.
 
"We have to keep unfair thing X in place to counter unfair thing Y."
"Couldn't we just put more effort into fighting/combating unfair thing Y?"
"LOL no, because I really just want to keep X in place and needed an excuse."
 
There's a difference between checks and balances and mutually assured destruction.

"The President has to be able to pardon people because some judge somewhere might go crazy on his relatives" is firmly in the latter.
 
JoeMorgue said:
There's a difference between checks and balances and mutually assured destruction.

"The President has to be able to pardon people because some judge somewhere might go crazy on his relatives" is firmly in the latter.
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Like how Batman carries around a piece of Kryptonite in case he ever decides he needs to murder Superman.
 
Thor 2 said:
Trump's fragrant abuse of his privilege to grant pardons brings this to mind.

I just wonder why a head of state should be given this privilege. How did this come about and what is the reasoning behind it?
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I am quite aware that Trump has been using his pardon powers incorrectly and stupidly.

After all, does anyone else recall how Trump discussed issuing a pardon to the famous boxer Muhammed Ali? Which was an odd thing for even Trump to do because Muhammed Ali was never convicted, therefore he did not need a pardon.

However, it is still a wise thing for people who are convicted wrongly/unjustly to have some sort of path to vindication, and that is what a pardon is supposed to be used for.
 
Crossbow said:
I am quite aware that Trump has been using his pardon powers incorrectly and stupidly.

After all, does anyone else recall how Trump discussed issuing a pardon to the famous boxer Muhammed Ali? Which was an odd thing for even Trump to do because Muhammed Ali was never convicted, therefore he did not need a pardon.

However, it is still a wise thing for people who are convicted wrongly/unjustly to have some sort of path to vindication, and that is what a pardon is supposed to be used for.
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My understanding is that there is a path. It's just that Trump bypasses it.
 
Let's look at it this way.

If the Pardon power is based on the idea that it's "good" (legally, morally, Constitutionally, or some combination of the three) for the President to override the courts because they sometimes make mistakes and/or act vindictively shouldn't it work both ways?

Shouldn't, under this argument, the President be able to extra-judicially convict people of Federal Crimes?
 
JoeMorgue said:
The path is just tradition, it's not inherent in the concept.
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The path seems mostly procedural - I haven't looked it up recently but I thought there was pardon/clemency board that people actually send appeals to.

ETA: And I always thought you should have to state the crimes you are being pardoned for. No blanket pardons.
 
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