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Very good stuff in this thread. But I'd like to note where I disagree on what pardons ideally should be for and should operate. Jack notes the current framework which basically holds that you should only ask for or receive a pardon after you've served your sentence, admitted ... https://twitter.com/jacklgoldsmith/status/1342097023751888897
2/ wrongdoing, made amends, etc. People in those categories may certainly deserve pardons. But I think it's a terrible mistake to restrict the power in that way and I'm quite certain that wasn't the understanding of pardons when the power was granted. This basically ...
3/ restricts pardons to symbolic ones. Some people just deserve a break. The machinery of justice may be fair as an ideal but it is brutal and almost by definition merciless. There's an escape valve provided by the pardon power to swoop in and do justice even if the ...
4/ framework of the law provides no avenue for it. Leaving this up to one person's will is genuinely archaic and Trump has brought to the forefront all the ways that is subject to abuse. But as a general matter I've long thought that we should have a lot more pardons ...
5/ and not just for people who've done their time and gone off to run charities and be model citizens but of people who are only halfway through their sentences. As I said above, the system is genuinely archaic and pre-modern. It's based in a system where you have ...
6/ a sovereign monarch and that person can simply grant grace and mercy simply because justice flows from that person. That framework sits very unevenly at best with our modern conception of the Presidency. And as I said, Trump has brought that all to the forefront.
7/ Perhaps Trump's corruption will lead to the end of the practice. But if it is ended we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the system needs MORE pardons, more mercy, more gracious second chances, not fewer. And not as forgiveness after sentences but to spring people.
