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So the executive can pardon crimes in advance in case the next executive might decide to criminally persecute people, even though they probably never did anything criminal to begin with? But despite the fact, that the next executive can just arbitrarily convict people criminally, they would respect that preemptive pardon?
America, this is not how division of power and state of law works. Heck the Sovjet Union under Stalin probably made more effort to appear as a state of law.
No, the executive CANNOT arbitrarily convict anyone. In fact, the whole grand/petite jury system exists specifically because we assume that the administration might be a petty tyrannical jerk.
The key feature of American federalism isn't the polite myth that is "rule of law". No country is,since the laws are all dependent on people to carry them out. Instead,it's "separation of power".
Trump is going to do terrible and shameful things, as Biden did terrible and shameful things, but the ultimate check on his would-be tyranny will be the greed and pride of the Republicans in Congress and on the court.
So what you’re saying is we are absolutely fucked
It's the inevitable outcome of identity politics. "You are asking me to change who I am" can only, will only and has always ended in violence and hatred. Bad faith actors inflame the situation and cry persecution because politics = belief once you've let the holy spirit get in bed with politicians. Just more bad actors.
If actions cannot have consequences then it's chaos and you need to burn it all down.
This is a bad take on identity politics, unless you "identify" as a jerk who doesn't care about others and wants to be sexist, transphobic, or racist.
Identity politics is "we should organize people based on how they categorize themselves", and that's bad for a whole list of reasons but not any of what you said.
The thing you're talking about really does exist, but I think "you must change who you are" may have a more precise name.
I think that "puritanical", "tyrannical", or "bigoted" politics may be more accurate.
What i meant was people acting in bad faith will not compromise "because that's who i am" makes for a very difficult situation.
Agreed on that. "But I'm an evangelical, and recognizing their gender is against my beliefs!" is a hell of a bad take, and deserves to be properly labeled as the bigotry that it is.
Not to mention that it's bad theology. There were plenty of folk in Roman Israel who lived as what we now call homosexual or transgender, and there's no way that the Word of Omniscient God Made Flesh was ignorant of them, and yet the sum total of what Jesus said mentioned neither at all.
(Title caps since it's said as an alias, not for emphasis. Separate comment because politics and religion are properly separate.)
Matches are no longer for sale in The United States
We are very aware of this. Unless and until the worker/pleb class can get its shit together and stop fighting a stupid culture war to focus on the class war, this is just gonna get worse.
America. Trying to emulate every aspect of the game Monopoly.
I guess other chance cards are next since the "get of jail free" card is implemented....
Yes, the president can pardon people who haven't yet been charged with a crime.
This isn't new, for example Carter pardoned all draft dodgers regardless of whether they had yet been charged.
how do you pardon people if there are no charges presented against someone, that by itself shouldnt be legal.
Blame Ford, he started it when he issued pardons for any previously-committed but uncharged crimes done by Nixon.
I just dont think that it is how the law is written to work, if I can forgive you for crimes not yet noted, then why not the other way around and charge you for crimes not actually done (read: thought crime).
It's never actually been constitutionally challenged.
Yeah, this is exactly the point here everyone. The pardons work because nobody has asked anyone if these blanket pardons are indeed legit.
So we can all sit here and try to mince the logic of such, but the real answer is that it exists in a superposition of legal and not legal until the various courts rule upon it.
The SCOTUS has already answered your question:
The power of pardon conferred by the Constitution upon the President is unlimited except in cases of impeachment. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.
Which is because they didnt wanna smear the office of the president, and they control the DOJ. We should just move that to a 6 year cycle election. But even then its not like election are by an informed people to start so I guess this is just fucking another thing that we can be like we are fucked on.
I guess because the outcomes are unaffected.
Either they did the crime, and the pardon is doing what it was designed to do. Or they didn't and it's not having any effect.
In this case, I imagine the pardons are "witch-hunt for revenge" immunity, given what's possibly coming down the pipe.
oh I am 100% sure, but on the other hand the 'news' could claim 'look Fiuci was guilty of making covid to start, they had to pardon him'
That's true.
But they could also do that without evidence sadly. The really sad part is that people would believe them either way
You are pardoned for an activity, not a particular charge.
If it were the other way around, then prosecutors would simply refile the case with different charges.
But the pardon implys the activity was against the law at the time, and they were doing so knowingly.
No, pardons do not imply guilt.
Pardons can be issued when someone is believed to be innocent of any wrongdoing.
Legally the SCOTUS ruled that accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt
No, they didn't.
"Accepting pardon is an admission of guilt" is found as dicta (non-binding commentary) in Burdick v. United States (1915).
Recently, the courts explicitly rejected that interpretation.
Senior U.S. Circuit Judge David Ebel declined to adopt that "draconian" reading of Burdick, saying the statement was an aside, or dicta, in the court's overall holding on the legal effect of someone's unaccepted pardon.
Ebel said no court since had ever held that accepting a pardon was akin to confessing guilt and that the ruling instead simply meant that accepting one "only makes the pardonee look guilty by implying or imputing that he needs the pardon."
Furthermore, "actual innocence" is among the criteria used to determine who should be pardoned.
in what world do they issue pardons (To release (a person) from punishment or disfavor for wrongdoing or a fault: synonym: forgive. from dictionary.com) to people that were never even considered to have been at fault or done no wrong??
The dictionary definition is not the legal definition.
A pardon can be issued to anyone, and it prevents any government punishment for the activities mentioned in the pardon.
It does not matter who, if anyone, considers them "at fault".
https://legaldictionary.net/pardon/
A pardon is a governmental decision to absolve an individual for a criminal conviction, often times freeing him from all or part of the punishment imposed at sentencing. Pardons are typically granted by the President, or by individual state governors, usually to absolve individuals, but may be granted, in certain circumstances, for groups of people. Federal pardons are granted by the President of the United States, and each state’s law dictates with whom the power to grant state pardons lies. To explore this concept, consider the following pardon definition.
Seems like it does indeed imply there is a crime and punishment .
Not according to the SCOTUS:
The power of pardon conferred by the Constitution upon the President is unlimited except in cases of impeachment. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.
either before legal proceedings are taken
that by itself says before they legal proceedings, stating that they should/could be charged with wrong doing. Not just for being good people, they are believed to be charged soon. If its a frivolous lawsuit it should be allowed to play out no need for a pardon in something that NO ONE THINKS YOU DID ANY WRONG. By granting the pardon you are saying that something is at least legally questionable and they could be charged. Again this all means that something that was illegal was going on and people can talk about that, even editorialize with this information and have a better root to believably with that the person was pardoned, so if there is no crime then they shouldnt have power to pardon anyone.
No, it does not say "if they are believed to be charged soon".
A pardon ends any possibility of charges. It does not matter if charges are imminent, theoretical, or even realistic. Likewise, a pardon does not mean "something is at least legally questionable and they could be charged."
The power to pardon is unlimited (except for impeachment). That means it can be issued for anything (except for impeachment). So if the President felt like it, it would absolutely be within his power to pardon you for the crime of killing Abraham Lincoln even though you weren't alive at the time. He could pardon you for anything you might have done on New Years, even if everyone knows you didn't do anything at all on New Years.
So what was it issued for, if there is no crime at all, the president can just give you a hey you get one crime on me. And even in your thought process, they have to name it, what were the reasons given. Again these reasons would insinuate a crime was committed.
A pardon is issued to prevent any future punishment. It does not have to give any reasons and it does not have to acknowledge a crime was committed.
In our legal system, you are only considered guilty of something after conviction. So if a pardon prevents charges, then legally you were never guilty of anything.
Of course you are personally free to assume whatever you want. Some people assume only guilty people are arrested, others don't make that assumption. You can assume only guilty people are pardoned, but others don't make that assumption.
So you are saying they give them a free crime, if its not declared at the time of the pardon they can just be like no it was for this murder of 800 people and no one can say otherwise.
Sure, the president could do exactly that if he wanted to. For example, Hunter Biden was pardoned for anything he did between 2014 and today.
Of course pardons are always retroactive, so Hunter does not get a free crime spree after his pardon.
And presidential pardons only apply to federal prosecution. Murder is a state crime, so it is not covered by a presidental pardon.
But if Hunter lied on his IRS forms in 2018 or committed mail fraud in 2022 or hacked a federal database last week, then yeah he officially got away with it.
its crazy this is necessary.
The fact that this was a good idea is humiliating.
He should have really fucked with Trump and pardoned anyone not yet convicted for any federal crimes committed since 2016.
Jesus, fuck this guy. Does he think if trump decides to go after any of these people a preemptive pardon will do shit?
Maybe you should have done more while you were president to stop the fascists, starting with finding an AG with an actual spine. Imagine the prosecutor version of Lina Khan running DoJ for the last four years.
I mean obviously the problem with republicans and trump trampling our rights is biden and the democrats. its just common sense. /s