alt Hacker NewsSomeone might have already pointed it out but for me, the sentence of RA is not the main issue, the issue is allowing a single person to stamp through an entire legal system and undermine all of the time and money that is invested in it, even if that person is a president.
I suspect that the idea originally was to give some safety valve but if it is used more than a few times by a President, it makes a mockery of it and it should be removed as a power. How can a President ever decide that the entire legal process is flawed and their opinion is right? If the sentence was too long then change the sentencing guidelines.
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> I suspect that the idea originally was to give some safety valve
That reminds me of the early 2000s, where there were a lot of US debates around around terrorism and "harsh interrogations" i.e. torture.
A certain bloc of politicians and commentators kept bringing up a hypothetical scenario where there was a nuclear bomb counting down, and some guy wouldn't admit where it was hidden in a major city. My favorite response to that involved presidential pardons, something along the lines of:
1. "So what? If everything you say is true, then the authorities would simply torture the guy and seek a pardon afterwards. We already have an exceptional mechanism for those exceptional situations, meaning that's not a reason to change it."
2. "Conversely, any interrogator who isn't confident of a pardon is on who does not believe it's at ticking-bomb situation, meaning they cannot justify torturing someone anyway, they just want to do it to make their job marginally easier. That's bad, so it should stay illegal."
It's part of the separation of powers and the system of checks & balances against powers of branches of government.
Congress makes laws and impeaches presidents, courts judge constitutionality of laws and try cases of treason and presidents appoint judges and grant pardons.
You can't have impeachment without pardon, otherwise, there wouldn't be a check against judicial tyranny.
It's a system of checks and balances. The Presidential pardon power is specifically a check on the power of the Federal judiciary.
Regimes have toppled in response to popular uprising against imprisonments perceived as unjust. Having a system of governance without a way to rectify that seems unwise to me.
The check on Presidential authority, in turn, is impeachment. It's not a perfect system by any means, but in my estimation it's a good one.
I tend to think this way about ideal leadership, but in reality big systems I can see end up having exception paths, or even processes
They literally gave the power of pardons so that one person could right wrongs. Previously, it was used a lot more than it is now. There are lots of people in prison on unfair sentences which are technically legal but still wrong. Sentencing guidelines are just guidelines.
Legal system is very often at odds with public perception of justice, changing the law is slow and does shit for people currently in jail - having veto power for elected officials is a good safety mechanism and helps perception of justice.
It is a relic from the time when most countries had kings who could pardon people.
He's a single person but this was a campaign promise of a campaign that 77.3 million americans voted for.
Is this a complaint about Trump or Biden ? So far Biden has pardoned more than 20x Trump , and Bidens recipients were Much more controversial
Bidens pardons have been even more absurd - pardoning people for unspecified crimes before they have even been charged. Including his family.
Did you say this about Biden pardoning his whole family for their crimes, or just the ones Trump issued?
Still something tells me you have zero problem with the thousands of pardons Biden issued, correct?
Don’t dress up your stance in fancy garb when it comes down to something baser.
Maybe the legal system shouldn't have been used to go after individuals based on political reasons? Wouldn't that be a good start? Fed always win, so send Fed after someone and they will be in jail soon. It doesn't matter what they did or didn't do, this is sadly the way it's done now.
1500 in jail for protesting in DC? Really, less than that in jail after months BLM riots afaik. Sure, jail a few bad boys, but 1500? No way.
Throw a rock at people in power and go jail. Rape and murder is fine, no threat to DC.
The main failure here is the failure of the elections system to elect anyone reasonable.
On its own it is not that bad an idea for someone who carries a mandate of the majority of the population to be able to grant pardons.