To be clear "they" (who can reject a person) is the recipient of the pardon, not the court. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burdick_v._United_States https://en

To be clear "they" (who can reject a person) is the recipient of the pardon, not the court. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burdick_v._United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burdick_v._United_States But that's not the relevant part of Burdock for this thread. The relevant part is that an (accepted!) pardon does apply before indictment.