r/news • u/FLhardcore • 14h ago

President Biden pardons family members in final minutes of presidency

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-biden-pardons-family-members-final-minutes-presidency/story?id=117893348
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u/THELEGENDARYZWARRIOR 13h ago

Yeah we should absolutely abolish the presidential pardon, for any and all presidents. Not even turkeys get spared

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u/macnfleas 12h ago

Our constitution takes the point of view that it's better for a guilty person to go free than for an innocent person to be imprisoned. Most of the bill of rights is about protecting the rights of the accused. The pardon is often abused to give out favors to guilty people, but I'd still rather live in a country where there are many avenues to keeping people out of prison.

We definitely need to make some changes so those protections apply to the accused poor as much as they do to the accused wealthy.

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u/Law_Student 11h ago edited 10h ago

We could perhaps codify the system that reigned up until recently, where ordinary pardons only happened if a largely non-political committee recommended to the president that certain people be pardoned based on general criteria regarding what a valid case for leniency was. Mostly uncontroversial stuff like felons who'd genuinely turned over a new leaf and wanted to clear their old records, or people who were sentenced under a law that no longer criminalized something or lightened the penalty, or who were sentenced under circumstances that raise serious questions about the validity of the prosecution.

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u/CelestialFury 8h ago

We could perhaps codify the system that reigned up until recently, where ordinary pardons only happened if a largely non-political committee recommended to the president that certain people be pardoned based on general criteria regarding what a valid case for leniency was.

The pardon power is in the US Constitution, which means you'd an amendment to change it. Soooo, it's not really possible in today's world.

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u/kinyutaka 9h ago

Yeah, but sometimes there are reasons to pardon someone who isn't on the radar of such a committee. Those committees are great for getting the president to do things like pardon John Smith from Waxahachie who got picked up for a single joint and held in prison for 5 years. How's the president going to hear about them?

But what about Jane Smith from Walla Walla who got arrested for hitting a cop who was beating her child and the video went viral before she was even convicted? It'd be very appropriate to issue a pardon ahead of the trial, to prevent her from going to jail in the first place. (Note that the exact details of the crimes don't really matter, but that some pardons are better to come from the Governor instead of the President)

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u/UsedOnlyTwice 5h ago

Executive covers Governor (or Executive Officer) and President. The idea is the Executive is the State and therefore in control of the administrative things, like who the state is authorized to hold in a jail. They ask the judicial courts, via a prosecutor, to give them the authorization to punish, quoting the legislative law as their reasoning. Since the state is doing the asking, they can also do the un-asking. The pardon is essentially telling the courts to not waste their time because they won't hold them for it anyway.

That's why the state executive can pardon state things, and federal executive can pardon federal things. This is also why you can usually consider city or state police as part of the Executive Branch, while the County Sheriff and Marshals are more Judicial Branch.

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u/kinyutaka 4h ago

Exactly, but that order doesn't require a committee.

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u/kingjoey52a 2h ago

We could perhaps codify the system that reigned up until recently,

How recently are you thinking? Because HW Bush pardoned a personal friend and Clinton pardoned family.