Presidential clemency

I generally support executive clemency for any reason for any crime. But it can be abused. I am free to wonder about who is pardoned and why. For example many of the Biden pardons were crazy political. I suppose that is OK if only because we don’t want to just routinely imprison all the members of the old regime when we get a new regime. Even if they may have been scoundrels.

rambot said:

1. Do you support the idea of presidential clemency?
2. Do you think there should be limitations or policies around it?
3. What should be the purpose of it?

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1. Yes.
2. There already is.
3. Because the criminal justice system is not perfect, and it sometimes makes mistakes.

rambot said:

1. Do you support the idea of presidential clemency?

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Certainly not the way it is now. All the recent Presidents have abused it, and there is no reason to believe that future ones will not.

To quote Andrew McCarthy, a strong critic of the pardon power:

Today, the pardon power is more often invoked scandalously, further dividing the nation rather than seeking to heal it. Modern clemency grants are indicative of corruption, self-dealing, cronyism, bribery (Clinton’s Rich pardon), preening for the base (e.g., Clinton’s and Obama’s clemency for violent left-wing radicals; Reagan’s clemency for FBI officials who broke the law while investigating left-wing radicals), or accomplishing unconstitutional ends (Obama’s mass commutations of drug sentences when he couldn’t get Congress to legislate amendments of the drug laws).

Nowadays, presidents head executive branches that are more likely to cause miscarriages of justice than ameliorate them. There is no need for a president to have unilateral pardon power because, if there is national consensus for some grant of clemency, it can be accomplished by legislation. You might counter that Congress will rarely address individual cases; but it would address them more often if a president had to get congressional approval for a pardon — which would discourage presidents from seeking corrupt pardons.

(there is more to the article than the above, but I obviously can't quote the whole thing) Note this was written in December of 2024 so it actually missed some good examples of problematic pardons that have happened since then.

Despite the article doing good job explaining why the pardon power is broken, I am not so sure I agree with its ultimate conclusion that it should simply be removed and the whole thing handled by congress. But it needs to be reigned in somehow. Given the system of checks and balances the US is supposed to have, it's very odd for such a unilateral power to exist.

rambot said:

2. Do you think there should be limitations or policies around it?

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Absolutely.

rambot said:

3. What should be the purpose of it?

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The purpose is supposed to be to be a method of either fixing an obvious injustice or, in cases of things like rebellion, a way to try to move on more easily or a way to defuse a situation (e.g. Washington pardoning the people in the Whiskey Rebellion or Johnson's blanket pardon of confederate rebels). It is obvious that a whole lot of cases of the pardon power are not examples of such. Something needs to be fixed in it.