We should at least ban the "preemptive" pardon if not all pardons. Pardon means forgiveness for a specific convicted crime, not a means to grant blanket immunity.
As long as that ban doesn't go into effect until after the next non-Republican administration. We need to be able to right the scales after MAGA's abuse of power.
There are two types here: (1) Pardons for crimes not yet committed. (2) Pardons for crimes committed, but not yet convicted. The first type will allow the pardoned to commit a crime in the future for free, which obviously should not be allowed. The second should be allowed if we have this pardon system at all.
The second type became a political necessity, for example to protect Liz Cheney from a vengeful administration.
The notion itself that someone needs to be protected by a 'vengeful administration', while judicial system should be not politically affiliated is telling how broken the whole separation of powers is. Everyone who is a ruling party puts candidates they know aligned with their views, resulting in 'just wait until my turn comes and I will do as much as damage as possible' cycle.
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We should go as far as to preemptively ban and sanction any POTUS who says "I'm going to pardon these people before I leave office".
There's no reason to say that unless you know they're actively committing federal crimes in the present day.
>There's no reason to say that unless you know they're actively committing federal crimes in the present day.
There are reasons. For example, you feel the justice system is going to be misused against them. Protection against future witch hunts basically.
I don't think this is what's happening here, and trump is on record talking very explicitly about weaponising the state against his enemies himself, but it's probably an excuse that will be used.
That's what Biden did for Hunter right?
Which side is likely to be petty and target family members in bad faith?
Hunter Biden was guilty of a slew of crimes both politically relevant and not.
His father granting him a pardon is perhaps the greatest example of corruption in us history.
Not true. Liz Cheney hasn’t committed any crimes (as far as we know).
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There is no universe where any pardon is abolished unless there is a massive political shakeup. The entrenched political class is terrified of endangering their power and privilege even if individual players are ready to do it.
I've often wondered what would happen if a president explicitly offers to pardon anybody who murders members of Congress. Would they settle on reigning in the pardon power with an amendment?
We're sort of already there. A lot of the Jan 6 rioters were openly trying to murder congressmen. The fact they weren't successful isn't super reassuring.
Nothing would happen, because SCOTUS decided to grant the president immunity for any crime committed in their official function, which would be the case here. It would literally be possible for the president to order congress killed, offer an automatic pardon to anyone carrying out this order, and establish a monarchy.
This single ruling will haunt the United States for the rest of its existence.
>SCOTUS decided to grant the president immunity for any crime committed in their official function
That ruling is very broad and vague! I don't think killing Congress is part of POTUS's official job description.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-isnt-immune-from...
Isn’t the definition of official duties vague and left to the courts?
It will be interesting to watch what comes next, if there will be next. But people die of natural causes and otherwise anyway.
Will it be the same a-lot-of-empty-talk-from-democrats like after first trump's term, or actually some concrete action? Clearly if next president would be democrat he can do some nice revenge and rebalance, maybe petty but maybe necessary. I would expect republicans do the usual crappy move of sticking with theirs regardless of crimes committed, any actual morals are an afterthought.
Its so weird to watch from outside, illogical, deeply flawed, unfair, and pretty weak system when it comes to handling unscrupulous sociopaths.
All bad is good for some things in hindsight, world desperately needs more decoupling from US. Petrodollars, swift and so on. Compared to this, judging by pure actions, chinese may seem saint in comparison
Like most political arguments, if you listen carefully; those who advocate for or against pardons, only want them to go one way.
A pardon is only a protection against a 'vengeful administration' if that administration is not your party.
Pardons are only a miscarriage of justice if those pardoned don't share your ideology.
My (leftist) opinion is that we don't give enough pardons. By the time people get out of prison, their lives are pretty much wrecked. We should have a lot more clemency and compassion. That's what the pardon is for.
If that means a ton of literal insurrectionists go free, that's fine with me. We elected someone precisely to do that. It's on the voters if we elected someone who was literally treasonous himself.
I hope the insurrectionists take the opportunity to get on with their lives. I gather that quite a few have already been banned for other crimes, and that's too bad.
I don't want prison to be vengeance. I want prison to make us all safer. I'd like the President to take a lot of leeway in finding people who are going to be productive citizens if they were given that gift.
That’s what ypu tell yourself to feel better. But it’s not true.
Do you know ANYONE who thinks the same way about Biden's pardons as they do about Trump's?
I certainly don't.
I'm a leftist, and a Democrat by necessity (not by choice) and I would be fine if the power of pardon was removed for Presidents who share my ideology. I would rather have working separation of powers and reform the justice system than give one person carte blanche power to nullify it based on their whim.
Not everyone making a political argument is engaging in cynical tribalism. Believe it or not, some people do actually believe in things.
Pardons only stop the federal government from prosecuting someone, the states would still go after those individuals
And in theory a future administration could do something like threaten to withhold funding to states that don’t prosecute.
I agree. I dont care if “my guy” or “your guy” does it, it should not be allowed.
The preemptive pardon is ridiculous. Pardon for what? What if it comes out someone is a child cannibal? Are they pardoned for that?
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There’s no /s so I’m assuming you didn’t know that child cannibalism was in the Epstein files https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-breaking-down...
So to answer your question, seems like Yes, pardons for all!
From the article you linked, child sacrifice allegations came from an anonymous FBI interview in 2019 and are not confirmed by any credible evidence. There are no cannibalism allegations; the word "cannibal" only appears in innocuous contexts.
So child sacrifice and cannibalism are only technically "in the Epstein files;" there's very little evidence that anyone did those things. For other readers, if you hadn't heard about this, that's probably why.
Little evidence that I was abused as a child too, must not have happened.
I am deeply sorry for your experience and I totally understand that it triggers something, but let's be ice cold logical for a moment.
If there is no evidence of a crime, you cannot prosecute someone in a constitutional democracy.
If you could you could just make up any claims and get rid of people you simply despise.
Which happens in various regimes...
So although it's certainly a possibility that such cases happened, as long as there is no evidence that they happened, they didn't for all legal matters.
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So I have mixed feeling on this.
I'm thinking of Carter fulfilling a campaign pledge to pardon draft dodgers. Whether you support that or not, he did what he said he was going to do and I'm sure only some of them had actually been charged in any way. I think that's a perfectly fine use for the pardon power.
Some will point to the Hunter Biden pardon. So two things can be true at once here: it was absolutely political prosecution AND Joe Biden was completely selfish with his action. At least do something for the people by, say, pardoning a whole bunch of low level drug offenders and decriminalize cannabis at the Federal level. But no, it was completely self-serving but his brain was pretty much gone by this point.
Here's the problem: Federal prosecutors have a ton of power. Conviction rates are 98-99%. But it goes beyond that. Federal prosecutors will intentionally bankrupt you to force you to take a plea. They might charge you with 15 felonies, 12 of which are basically bogus. You still have to defend those bogus felonies and that costs you money. And as soon as you run out of money, they'll offer you a plea where you're looking at 25 years on the 3 remaining felonies or you can just take 10.
The power imbalance is insane and the wealthy are essentially immune. If a US attorney decides to make an example of you, you're going to have a bad time, regardless of the facts.
Millions were spent dredging up some crimes for Hunter Biden and pretty much all they could come up with was doing crack and filling out a form incorrectly. Do you think anyone else would get that level of attention?
A very recent example of this is the Karen Read trial or, as I call it, the most expensive DUI prosecution in history. If you didn't follow the case, don't worry, there'll be any number of true crime documentaries. Millions were spent prosecuting Karen Read for killing JOhn O'Keefe with a completely ridiculous theory of the case and all sorts of evidence that went missing (including police officers disposing of their cell phones on a military base the day before an electronics preservation order was issued).
I don't know what we do about this power imbalance and selective prosecution.
> Federal prosecutors have a ton of power. Conviction rates are 98-99%.
This always gets thrown around, but the fact is they should be that high. Prosecutors shouldn't bring cases unless they have evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and DOJ prosectors don't (normally) screw around.
When you see lower rates of conviction, as in the current ethically bankrupt administration, it's often malicious prosecution, aka "You'll beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride."
I would be fine if high conviction rates reflected prosecutor's only bringing good cases. It doesn't. It reflects the odds being stacked against you and it being so expensive and high risk to defend yourself.
This high cost and power imbalance is used to force people into plea deals for crimes they didn't commit.
Let me give you an example: 924C enhancements [1]. This is where certain drug or violent crimes being committed with a firearm can add years or even decades to a sentence automatically.
Let's just say you live in a concealed carry state and you have a weapon on you. You're walking home and the police pick you up. You match the description of one of two people who were smoking drugs in an alley as per a 911 call. The other person was already picked up by police. He was unarmed. His story was that you sold him the drugs. He also claims you brandished a pistol.
Was there a drug transaction? Or was this simply two people smoking together? The other person had a small quantity of drugs on him when apprehended.
A 911 call mentioned seeing a weapon drawn. It was dark. You can go through versions of this scenario where you were the other person or it was a case of mistaken identity. Eitehr is bad for you.
What if the other person sold you the drugs and made up this story to avoid a distribution charge? What if as a teenager you had a minor possession charge? What if prosecutors believe the other person and make a deal for a reduced sentence in exchange for testimony?
You have a gun and now 2 witnesses who say you "brandished" the gun. So whatever charge you end up with the "brandishing a firearm" part (under 924(c)) adds 7 years to your sentence to be served consecutively. And they've stopped you with a firearm.
So what was a "he said, she said" situation has now turned into a situation where you could be facing 10 years in jail and defending against that could well cost you $200,000+, which you don't have. Or you can take this plea for 2 years in jail. What do you do?
[1]: https://www.nyccriminalattorneys.com/18-u-s-c-%C2%A7-924c-th...
> I would be fine if high conviction rates reflected prosecutor's only bringing good cases. It doesn't.
There is a huge amount of hand-waving following this assertion without any evidence to back up the claim.
I'm not saying abuse of process doesn't happen, but this is just saying it can and then spelling out a big hypothetical without any proof that this practice is rampant.
It's hard to find quantative data but one clear example is DNA-based exoneration by the Innocence Project [1]
> Among the many insights drawn from these wrongful convictions is the realization that a guilty plea is not an uncommon outcome for innocent people who have been charged with a crime: 11 percent of the DNA exonerees recorded by the Innocence Project pleaded guilty
There's a thing called the Trial Penalty [2]. ~98% of charges result in a guilty plea. If all 100% went to trial the system would collapse. As such, prosecutors coerce plea deals [3]. But the Trial Penalty works pretty much like the example described: if you go to trial, you will be overcharged and face, say, 10-30+ years in jail. Or you can take a plea for 2 years.
This Trial Penalty is made worse with mandatory minimums and add-on charges like I mentioned (ie 924(c)).
This effect has been modeled with maths and game theory to show hoow extreme outcomes cause people to plead guilty more often [4].
This is a well-known problem in criminal justice. You're showing either a complete lack of imagination or simply don't think this will ever be used against you.
[1]: https://www.innocenceproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/...
[2]: https://www.tisonlawgroup.com/is-your-sixth-amendment-right-...
[3]: https://innocenceproject.org/coerced-pleas/
[4]: http://www.bernardosilveira.net/resources/Plea_bargain_Novem...