minor legal/political question

[kaigou]

For the US president to pardon someone, doesn't that someone have to be accused of a crime in the first place? How do you pardon someone who hasn't been charged with anything?

Comments

[stinky-horowitz.livejournal.com]

Pardons don't exonerate you, they simply grant that the time served has been sufficient.

No, that's a reprieve. Here's what I found on pardons:

"A pardon reaches both the punishment prescribed for the offence and the guilt of the offender; and when the pardon is full, it releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offence. If granted before conviction, it prevents any of the penalties and disabilities consequent upon conviction from attaching [thereto]; if granted after conviction, it removes the penalties and disabilities, and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity." --Justice Stephen Field, U.S. Supreme Court, Ex parte Garland [Source: Cornell University Law School] (http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/art2frag13_user.html)

However, a later case determined that the pardoned's conviction record was not expunged by the pardon, so that's the reason they rescinded my dad's concealed carry permit. He does vote, go to jury duty, and enjoy the normal civil privileges, but if he were convicted of a crime today his previous record could still be held against him in court.

In Nixon's case, acceptance of the pardon would be considered tacit admission of guilt by most, though the pardon would preclude any punishment for his crimes. That's why pardoned persons are not required to accept the pardon, though in cases of life and death sentences they do not continue with the death sentence if the pardon is not accepted; instead, it's commuted to a life sentence.

Lots of interesting reading and phone calls, thank you! Turns out I was wrong: Dad never found his pardon at Grandma's house and he never contested the permit being taken away, though he thought about it. He served in a federal penitentiary for juveniles from ages 16 to 21. All of his car theft convictions were on his juvenile record; his only adult conviction was for a prison escape at age 18. (That's a long story I only knew of from other sources until last night. Thank you!) His parole officer applied for the pardon on his behalf and the warden helped get him in a halfway house so he never had to go home to his family again. They did all this because he saved a guard from being beaten to death during someone else's attempted prison break, as well as other things he did that resulted in less violence in the prison. Though I'm not sure how his parole officer was able to apply for a pardon, since you're not supposed to apply until five years after you've served your sentence, if convicted. Maybe that rule was put in place after 1971. I didn't find documentation.

I'll quit writing a book here, and just say thanks for raising the question. I was on the phone until 2 AM last night, getting answers I never expected to have.