That would be after the war crimes trials we will never see, right?
"The untapped power of presidential pardons; President Obama is ignoring one of his most effective tools, some experts say" by Leon Neyfakh | Globe Staff, March 17, 2013
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Over the past 30 years, the American public has come to see presidential pardons as a haphazard exercise in mercy at best, and a corrupt flexing of power at worst. We think of Gerald Ford letting Richard Nixon get away with Watergate; Bill Clinton using his last day in office to pardon both his half-brother, Roger, and a wealthy donor’s tax-evading husband; and George W. Bush commuting Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s prison sentence for leaking the name of a CIA agent and lying about it.
Why does Marc Rich remain unmentioned?
Btw, you can place the blame on her for the stay overnight at the Watergate.
This is not how the pardon power was meant to be used when the founding fathers wrote it into the Constitution. And according to a chorus of critics in the legal world, the fact that Americans now think about it with such skepticism—when they think about it at all—reflects a failure of leadership on the part of our presidents. Used properly, they say, the pardon is a singular tool of governance, one with the power to restore balance to the justice system and put important issues on the national agenda.
“The pardon power has ancient roots, and was a regular part of both federal and state practice for most of our history,” said Marc Miller, a professor at the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. “That practice has decayed almost to the point of oblivion in the federal system, and in most states. And among the reasons it has decayed is...that it’s been exercised in an arbitrary or even a political fashion.”
Miller and others who have looked closely at pardons argue that instead of using the power as a “get out of jail free” card for cronies, as Clinton is accused of doing, or using it hardly at all, as Obama has, the White House ought to treat it as a high-profile rebuke to policies it believes have produced unjust results. And the fact that presidents have stopped wielding the pardon power in a way that matters, they say, has made the United States a less fair place.
Tell us something we don't already know.
A presidential grant of clemency—which can mean releasing someone from prison early or restoring a convicted person’s right to vote and hold certain jobs that would otherwise be off limits—can send a powerful message. Following his election in 1800, Thomas Jefferson pardoned people who had been imprisoned under the Alien and Sedition Act, which he considered blatantly unconstitutional.
We need another Jefferson.
After Prohibition passed in 1919, Woodrow Wilson signaled his opposition by pardoning some 500 people convicted under liquor laws. More recently, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson reduced the sentences of drug offenders—more than 200 in all—who had been imprisoned under mandatory minimum sentences established by Dwight Eisenhower.
Still fighting that battle 50 years later?
In each of these cases, experts say, a president took advantage of the pardon power—a nearly unique tool that allows him to unambiguously and unilaterally override the other branches of government—in order to serve actual ideas and values. And over the next three years, they argue, President Obama could use it in a similarly principled way, highlighting whole categories of individuals whose lives have been ruined by policies he sees as unjust or unduly harsh—injecting urgency into, say, the national debate over mass incarceration or the disproportionate impact of drug laws on minorities.
I wouldn't hold my breath (cough) wait.... actually I would.
The political cost could be huge, of course—in part because freeing a person from prison implicates the president in any crime he or she commits in the future, but also because the pardon itself has become so radioactive in the eyes of the public. Rehabilitating it would not be easy. But at a moment when the incarceration rate in the United States is near an all-time high, and the experience of living and working with a felony conviction is growing ever more difficult, it’s worth asking whether the president ought to see the pardon power not just as an option but as a duty.
In the laaaand of the freeeeeeeee(??), and the home of the braaaaaaaaaaaaave.
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The Constitution devotes just a few words in Article II to the president’s right to grant pardons, and no rationale is provided. But the writings of Alexander Hamilton provide a hint as to what the framers had in mind when they decided the president should be able to personally overturn individual sentences and override the law of the land on a case-by-case basis. “Without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel,” Hamilton wrote, adding that in certain situations—following a rebellion, for instance—the issuing of pardons could “restore the tranquility of the commonwealth.”
Knowing Hamilton and what he stood for he probably meant it to be applied to bankers, given that he shoved a central bank down the nation's throat -- the exact reason the colonists fought for independence from the crown.
According to Margaret Colgate Love, who served as US pardon attorney under George H. W. Bush and Clinton and is now an attorney specializing in clemency, presidents used the pardon power routinely for much of American history, often to commute prison sentences, and sometimes to restore citizenship rights to former convicts who were already free....
Grants of clemency were issued at a rate that now seems staggering. Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued more than 3,000. Harry Truman issued almost 2,000. Abraham Lincoln issued so many that his attorney general said he was “unfit to be trusted with the pardoning power,” partly, writes Love, “because he was too susceptible to women’s tears.” But starting with the Reagan years, when being “tough on crime” became de rigueur for politicians, the number of people whom presidents pardon or whose sentences they commute has dropped precipitously. Meanwhile, the number of people submitting petitions for clemency has steadily increased—in large part, according to Love, because the “collateral consequences” of living with a conviction have grown increasingly punishing.
The fact that prisons are so crowded is in itself seen by some as a compelling reason to bring back and expand the use of the pardon.
Related: California Flare-Ups: Freed to Fight Fires
But for many critics, the problem isn’t just that there aren’t enough pardons being given out—it’s that there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to who gets them....
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Others pardoned (or not):
"President pardons man in decades-old Gloucester fish scandal
James A. Bordinaro Jr., a former Gloucester fish company manager who served time in federal prison for his role in a 1980s-era bid-rigging scandal, was pardoned by President Obama Friday, according to the White House. From the 1980s into the early 1990s, Bordinaro was general manager of Gloucester’s Empire Fish Co., which, along with several other New England fish processing companies, conspired to fix the price of fish sold to the Department of Defense, according to Globe reports at the time. Prosecutors also charged Empire and its co-conspirators with falsifying documents certifying that their catch was from US waters, a requirement of government contracts. In fact, much of the fish the group sold to the government was from Canadian waters and had been “laundered” through a series of secret transfers. Bordinaro and Empire Fish were fined a total of $355,000, and the three-generation family business went into bankruptcy before being sold. Bordinaro, previously a well-known spokesman for the town’s fishing industry, pleaded guilty to the charges in April 1991 and was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment, three years supervised release, and a $55,000 fine."
What kind of me$$age does that send? War profiteers receive pardons, war criminals are not prosecuted, and too big to jail banks are, well, too big to jail.
"Cowan joins effort to pardon boxing great Jack Johnson" March 05, 2013
WASHINGTON — He was the first African-American world heavyweight boxing champion, nicknamed the “Galveston Giant” after his hometown in Texas. But even John Arthur “Jack” Johnson could not fight against the racism of his time when in 1913, he was wrongly convicted on charges of human trafficking for bringing his girlfriend, who was white, across state lines.
On Tuesday a bipartisan coalition of congressmen, including Senator William “Mo” Cowan of Massachusetts, introduced a resolution calling for President Obama to posthumously pardon Johnson.
I'm glad he's on top of the issues of the day, even if he is interim.
“Jack Johnson was one of the great African-American athletes. His skill and perseverance to get back up every time he was knocked down made him a champion in the eyes of the sports world and for those who, like him, pursued their dreams despite racial intolerance,” Cowan said.
Johnson, subject of the 1970 film “The Great White Hope,” in which James Earl Jones played him, earned his heavyweight title in 1908. His boxing success, and defeat of white opponents, sparked race riots.
The son of former slaves, Johnson disdained racist rules, openly flaunting his wealth and dating white women. He was convicted of violating the Mann Act, enacted to prevent prostitution across state lines, for his travels with a former girlfriend. Sentenced to a year in prison, Johnson skipped bail and fled to Europe, and then Cuba, where he lost his title in 1915. He returned to the United States in 1920 and served his sentence, his career and reputation in tatters. He died in a car crash in 1946 at age 68.
Cowan signed onto the resolution to posthumously pardon Johnson’s “racially motivated conviction” joining Senators John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, and Representative Peter King, a New York Republican. Cowan said he has seen “Great White Hope” and is a fan of James Earl Jones. McCain and King, both lifelong boxing fans, have introduced legislation to pardon Johnson since 2004.
I mean, go ahead and do it, but this is what they are concerning themselves with? No wonder this country is in horrible shape. It's on autopilot as it goes down, with the elite parachuting out while the politicians party in the cockpit. Meanwhile, the public is screaming in coach.
“In past years, both chambers of Congress unanimously passed this resolution, but unfortunately, it still awaits executive action and no pardon has been issued,” McCain said in a written statement. “We can never completely right the wrong perpetrated against Jack Johnson during his lifetime, but this pardon is a small, meaningful step toward acknowledging his mistreatment before the law and celebrating his legacy of athletic greatness and historical significance.”
When Congress passed an earlier version of the resolution in 2009, the Obama administration said at the time that the White House does not issue posthumous pardons.
Time to put this post to rest.
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Related: Someone is still waiting, and he's not dead -- yet.
