We need a constitutional amendment to limit the power of executive pardon.

[jjrjsa]

I think this is something most americans would want. Americans tend not to like people who are "above the law" and the unlimited power of pardon the president currently has is absurd, in my view. Now, I know the pardon has some purposes... they serve as a check on the judicial system and sometimes people just get screwed by the law (They're technically guilty but they really didn't do anything wrong), so I think we should keep some form of pardon.

I would like to set the following limits on presidential pardons:

-Pardons take 100 days to take effect, except in the case of a stay of execution, if the president who granted the pardon is not in office when the 100 days are up, the current president has a right to cancel the pardon.

-During the 100 day period congress may, at the request of any member, take an up-or-down vote on the pardon. If a majority of both houses votes "no" on it, the pardon is void.

What do you guys think? This would make it a helluva lot tougher to pardon cronies and would eliminate lame duck pardons.

[bowens43]

1. It's not needed. The Constitution is just fine the way it is.

[Caution]

2. Agreed. Leave it as is.

[shraby]

3. My thoughts on Presidential pardon...

The limit I would make is that a president can't pardon anyone in his administration.

[Igel]

4. That is many hundreds of thousands of people.

But wouldn't include Libby, who is no longer in his administration.

[joeunderdog]

10. Sorry, Santa Claus has left the building. nt

[Vidar]

15. We have a winner!

[bigmonkey]

5. I would disagree with the changes the OP suggests, but the pardon needs

to be fixed. Here's my simple suggestion - the pardon needs to be reserved only for convicted crimes. Most of these "get out of jail free" escapades revolve around the pre-emptive pardons that started with Gerald Ford. Restrict them to convicted crimes, something that could possibly be done via a court ruling (under the rule of law, if that ever makes a comeback.) That way, the truth comes out, in analogy to the South African reconciliation process. The simple meaning of a pardon is a pardon of a convicted crime - make that its operative meaning. It was GOP politicians that started to expand it with the pre-emptive pardons of Nixon, Casper Weinberger, etc.

That said, I admit it is tempting to propose expanding the rules to make it hard or impossible for a POTUS to pardon employees, but I think the exposure of the facts in a trial might be enough of a deterrent.

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. But what is the down side of simply abolishing presidential

pardons? What is the rationale you see for retaining it.

I find it difficult to imagine a more fundamentally and gratuitously pernicious aspect of US politics, and its evil ramifications are very far-reaching.

"...but I think the exposure of the facts in a trial might be enough of a deterrent."

Why? Why should the ultimate custodian of law and order in your country be able to act as an archangel to seriously criminal individuals, whose crimes often affect, even ruin many innocent lives? And, in any case, isn't it the ultimate blessing on their felonies? The knowledge that they can do whatever the heck they like with impunity. It's a guarantee of built-in corruption at the highest levels, for as long as it lasts.

Could you envisage another circumstance in which an individual might reasonably be allowed to bestow legal immunity on criminal friends? A car thief? A mugger? A murderer? A fraudster? On the basis of what rationale?

I don't believe any other country in the developed world would think that an appropriate option to be within the gift of their head of state, PM, etc. And incidentally, it also let's the President off the hook for keeping criminal company, and making the US a laughing stock. We're not talking about marital indiscretions are we?

[kiahzero]

8. It gives the executive a check on the power of the courts

For the record, the pardon is a power of the executive or head of state in Canada, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Ireland, and Russia (and probably others).

[Joe Chi Minh]

9. "It gives the executive a check on the power of the courts".

What sort of a half-baked assertion is that? You mean it enables the head of state to bypass the criminal law to keep his friends out of jail. What an extraordinarily wonderful, nay, inspired check on the power of the courts.

So, flaunting the enforcement of the law is actually then a means whereby a check can be exerted on the power of the courts: from taking the fifth, to hiding from law enforcement agencies, even jail-breaking, and assuming a false identity - they're all ways of keeping a check on that dratted power of the courts? That means, then, that, given the chance, most felons would be the most conscientious freelance arbiters of the scope of judicial power imaginable? What a marvellous thing democracy is...

For the record, is it used routinely after each term of office of the head of state in those countries, (thereby, of course, encouraging electoral corruption in the most shamelessly overt and unambiguous fahsion)? I don't remember even Thactcher presuming to take that option.

[kiahzero]

12. It's the same type of check as jury nullification

It can sometimes be used for nefarious purposes - keeping a white out of jail for committing a crime against someone of another race, for instance - but it is a necessity for limiting the power of any one branch of government. I don't know why I even bother, though, because you've worked yourself into a tizzy about how horrible the power of the pardon is, so anything I say is just going to get ignored anyway. :shrug:

[Joe Chi Minh]

18. On the contrary, you have just identified in the clearest terms why

any value it might have had in principle, is more than nullifed by its susceptibility to the most pernicious bias - in favour of the very people whose power impacts vast tracts of the population - in this context, simply, the whole population.

You need to gain a sense of perspective, the sense of a hierarchy of priorities involved in issues. But you're right, I would be foolish to do other than ignore your posts on the subject, unless/until you gain a sense of scale - just elementary discernment, really.

I notice you ignored my point about the unthinkableness of a Western European head of state pardoning criminal friends of his, even on an "ad hoc" basis, never mind routinely, as enshrined in the US legislation, with the departure of each outgoing President. But then I expected you to ignore it.

[Thickasabrick]

6. Ok fine, leave the constitution alone but can't there be a law?

I want to limit Shrub's pardoning ability, but the governor in ky really pissed me off pardoning everyone except him. It's just wrong.

[dogday]

11. Yeah, like they would follow it....

They wipe their asses with our constitution... Phone records, Bank records, sneak and peek.. No charge arrests thanks to the patriot act.....


Sure that would be a great idea....

[Yupster]

13. This kind of change has to be suggested

when your party is in power.

Otherwise it just looks like partisanship and won't go anywhere. Sure you want to limit Bush's padons, but you sure didn't care when Clinton pardoned Mark Rich.

If the Democratic House and Senate leaders sggested a change like this while Clinton was in office, it could have maybe gone somewhere.

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. I'm afraid you're judging DUers by your own standards. That was

certainly not the case. No more than it was the case that Duers wanted corrupt Democratic crooks to escape prosecution and imprisonment. On the contrary, they expressed the wish that they wanted the book thrown at them, just as forcefully as any Republican would.

After all, it's very obvious that it is not in the interests of Democrats for villains in their party to get away with their crimes, since criminality is so much more rife among Republican politicians that is now pretty endemic. A low rate of attrition in the numbers of Democratic politicians via indictments of corrupt members and their backers is a small price to pay for the absolute decimation of Republican politicians, extant and pending.

I believe Reagan's administration set the tone - and indeed holds the record. But it has already surely been far exceeded by the current crop of Republican politicians - simply for sexual crimes! There is a list of the Republican stalwarts in that area periodically published on here. But it would still be very surprising if the number concerned exceeded the other the forms of criminality of a political and/or financial nature they've been clocking up.

On top of all that, the first thing far-right governments do everywhere in the world, on their assumption of power, is to expunge extant laws which criminalise actions and conduct in which they wish to engage.

Thatcher was a very keen proponent of that, but as I mentioned on another thread, even she would not have dreamed of using the pardon system in favour of criminal members of her administration, or the party's criminal political friends and allies.

[sweetheart]

14. A constitution! There's an idea!

We need a constitution instead of a monarch, a constitution that actually works,
not the toilet paper crap one that's been flushed down the corporate money toilet.

[shadowknows69]

16. I have to agree

in concept I think its once of the worst of the executive powers. It begs for corruption and it smacks of monarchy to me. It enables criminals at the top to look after their own and it pisses on the concept of true accountability.

[ComerPerro]

17. Americans don't like people who are above the law?

Hell, that's news to me

[Hippo_Tron]

20. Nope, for all of the flaws in the Pardon...

It is still an essential check on judicial power. And it's not always cronies that are pardoned during the lame duck period, sometimes there are legitimate pardons that the president should have done earlier but wouldn't because of politics.

Guys like Libby getting off is a sacrifice that I'm willing to make for this essential part of our democracy.

[SoCalDem]

21. The sad thing is that pardons were put in place to prevent

political prosecutions, so it made sense for a sitting president to be able to negate them, but if there are actual CRIMES attached to the people, it makes NO sense..

The whole idea of a pardon, is to undo a wrong...Martha Stewart would be a prime example..She was overzealously prosecuted and over-punished, while others who had done much worse, were given immunity or fined..

The problem with THIS president, is that a lot of the prosecutions that have happened (and which would be pardonable) were INSTITUTED BY HIM, so no pardons will be forthcoming. and the criminal cohorts of his who somehow managed to do something so bad, that they ended up prosecuted...will end up pardoned.

The pardon was meant to interrupt the practice of harrassing the administration officials after a bitter campaign...so they could actually govern..

That all ended a long time ago.. It's now just another arrow in the president's quiver, to reward his own lawbreakers with immunity, and to leave office with all his "people" protected...(and the secrets they kept for him)

A president...ANY president should be able to pardon someone who has served a sentence and yet the stain of prosecution follows him/her back into private life (i.e. Martha)...or someone who IS serving a sentence, but has turned their life around, is repentent, and for whom the prosecution may have been less than perfection..

Pardons should NEVER EVER be allowed for anyone who is with the current administration. That's how the watergaters and Iran-Contra folks wriggled free of their ill deeds...and why they are WITH US NOW causing more havoc..

A pardon should never be a "free pass to commit any crime"...

[Joe Chi Minh]

22. You have just summarised this issue in your country perfectly.

I can see that that must have been the original intent, and also its corollary, that its apologists here have not merely a very blunt sense of moral perception, but a sorry lack of the plain, legal horse-sense that clearly must have been the origin of the legislation.

[bigmonkey]

23. I guess I'm coming from an aesthetic point of view,

at least to some extent. I want the language to be clear and succint. Trying to corner the pardon with language in an amendment seems like an invitation for parsing. But I, with you, wish that it could be restricted so that the president can't pardon himself or anybody who worked for him as president. There, I agree with you, that would be best.

But my original point is that a lot of the negative aspects would go away if only the pardon were restricted to pardoning convicted criminals. Before any conviction comes the trial, and discovery, and public records. What is happening now is that the Cons have arrogated to the presidential pardon the ability to pardon people for any crimes they might have committed, thereby covering the whole shebang with secrecy. The political process is short-circuited.

My main reason for making this suggestion is that it could come from a court ruling, and thus not have to go through the whole arduous amendment process. I think it's really common sense that only convicted criminals can be pardoned. I think the restriction would severely cut down the nefarious activity, if the President has to pardon a convicted criminal whose activities are public record.