Unfortunately, sometimes our judges, juries, and officers are also biased or incorrect; pardons are useful when the delivery of justice was mistaken or excessive.
> pardons are useful when the delivery of justice was mistaken or excessive
If you look at a slew of the recent pardons, the beneficiaries had already pleaded guilty. In those cases, the pardons should be ineligible. I think the most a President could do - should be - give defendants the ability to appeal the case to a new judge or jury. It's wrong and should be corrected! Added it to my todo list
Unfortunately, very often the best thing to do is just let them have their way and walk away with a lot less of a punishment than would be the case should you dare to fight them.
Financially and personally, it's what they do to pressure you into submission. It happens from criminal cases all the way down to fucking family court. It's absurd and it's broken.
I truly believe that almost every single attorney should have to lose sleep at night over how their actions impact others.
Pardons only enable presidents to direct their goons to operate outside of the rule of law without repercussions.Having one individual with strong incentives to enable their team stay in power as much as possible retain the power is shocking.
Judges and juries are at least superficially removed from that sort of corrupt incentive system.
> Pardons only enable presidents to direct their goons to operate outside of the rule of law without repercussions.
It is clear that they don't only do that, as that has not been their principal (or even a common) use for most of the history of the pardon power.
It is equally clear, however, that they do allow that; the check on that, like on most discretionary Presidential powers, is the Congressional power of impeachment; obviously, that is not a meaningful constraint when the Congress and the President are aligned on abuses, but the entire point of having separately elected bodies is to make it less likely that things that the public would see as abuses are supported by both political branches simultaneously. (Obviously, the fact that one whole house of Congress and 1/3 of the other are elected at the same time as the President, and that the weighting of the electoral college for the President are a blend of the apportionment to the House and Senate makes those elections less independent than one might want, even before considering the way the electoral structure contributors to partisan duopoly, though.)
> I'm not sure why Presidents were given the ability to pardon.
Because of the impossibility of law written in advance perfectly covering all cases and to provide a mechanism for correction of overpunishment that cannot be effectively anticipated in crafting general law. (That's more the reason why the traditional power of chief executives seen in state governments and the British government they were all more or less modeled on was retained when a federal executive was created; the US Constitution was very much not create ex nihilo in a historical vaccuum.)
> Besides corruption, bias, or self-interest, nothing else can come out of it.
Every viewpoint is "bias" relative to every other viewpoint, so that piece is a nullity, but it is certain;y not the case that corruption and self-interest are the only impacts or motivations for applying the pardon power.
Which isn't to say that there aren't arguments for putting more guardrails around the application of the power by the executive (or perhaps just radically changing the nature of the federal executive, to improve the application of its powers generally and not just the pardon power).
It's a consequence of the executive's power to... well, execute the law. They can simply decide to not focus prosecution on certain crimes. If they can do that, why not let them also pardon people?
I'm not sure why Presidents were given the ability to pardon. Besides corruption, bias, or self-interest, nothing else can come out of it.
Unfortunately, sometimes our judges, juries, and officers are also biased or incorrect; pardons are useful when the delivery of justice was mistaken or excessive.
> pardons are useful when the delivery of justice was mistaken or excessive
If you look at a slew of the recent pardons, the beneficiaries had already pleaded guilty. In those cases, the pardons should be ineligible. I think the most a President could do - should be - give defendants the ability to appeal the case to a new judge or jury. It's wrong and should be corrected! Added it to my todo list
A guilty plea doesn't really mean actual guilt in the modern justice system. The state is overwhelmingly powerful in the cases it brings.
Unfortunately, very often the best thing to do is just let them have their way and walk away with a lot less of a punishment than would be the case should you dare to fight them.
Financially and personally, it's what they do to pressure you into submission. It happens from criminal cases all the way down to fucking family court. It's absurd and it's broken.
I truly believe that almost every single attorney should have to lose sleep at night over how their actions impact others.
Pardons only enable presidents to direct their goons to operate outside of the rule of law without repercussions.Having one individual with strong incentives to enable their team stay in power as much as possible retain the power is shocking.
Judges and juries are at least superficially removed from that sort of corrupt incentive system.
> Pardons only enable presidents to direct their goons to operate outside of the rule of law without repercussions.
It is clear that they don't only do that, as that has not been their principal (or even a common) use for most of the history of the pardon power.
It is equally clear, however, that they do allow that; the check on that, like on most discretionary Presidential powers, is the Congressional power of impeachment; obviously, that is not a meaningful constraint when the Congress and the President are aligned on abuses, but the entire point of having separately elected bodies is to make it less likely that things that the public would see as abuses are supported by both political branches simultaneously. (Obviously, the fact that one whole house of Congress and 1/3 of the other are elected at the same time as the President, and that the weighting of the electoral college for the President are a blend of the apportionment to the House and Senate makes those elections less independent than one might want, even before considering the way the electoral structure contributors to partisan duopoly, though.)
That’s not an argument for pardons, it’s an argument for a better appeals process.
> I'm not sure why Presidents were given the ability to pardon.
Because of the impossibility of law written in advance perfectly covering all cases and to provide a mechanism for correction of overpunishment that cannot be effectively anticipated in crafting general law. (That's more the reason why the traditional power of chief executives seen in state governments and the British government they were all more or less modeled on was retained when a federal executive was created; the US Constitution was very much not create ex nihilo in a historical vaccuum.)
> Besides corruption, bias, or self-interest, nothing else can come out of it.
Every viewpoint is "bias" relative to every other viewpoint, so that piece is a nullity, but it is certain;y not the case that corruption and self-interest are the only impacts or motivations for applying the pardon power.
Which isn't to say that there aren't arguments for putting more guardrails around the application of the power by the executive (or perhaps just radically changing the nature of the federal executive, to improve the application of its powers generally and not just the pardon power).
Presidents can pardon to provide a check on the courts. If congress doesn't like the pardon they can impeach the president.
It's a consequence of the executive's power to... well, execute the law. They can simply decide to not focus prosecution on certain crimes. If they can do that, why not let them also pardon people?
No, it’s based on English clemency. https://govfacts.org/explainer/the-presidential-pardon-power... has a nice explanation of the power and its history.
> I'm not sure why Presidents were given the ability to pardon.
Won’t somebody please think of the ~~children~~ turkeys?!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Thanksgiving_Turkey_P...
Joking aside, Wikipedia does have a history of it. It goes way back, way before the USA was even a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_pardons_in_the_United_...
it's part of our Christian values.