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The power to pardon needs to be removed all together. All it does is show that the President overrides the department of justice. How anyone ever thought this s

The power to pardon needs to be removed all together. All it does is show that the President overrides the department of justice. How anyone ever thought this should be a thing, I have no idea.

munk-a 1y ago
I think a congressional pardon power to allow national leniency on previously accepted sentences that are now viewed as unjust might be worth holding onto. It being such a casual presidential power has made it ripe for corruption for a long time but I would weigh that with civil rights era pardons for sham trials - I think we do still need a national sanity check relief valve for local injustices. And the dysfunction of congress probably works in our favor here since pardons should be exceptional - not routine. A routine pardon is just a demonstration of the justice department failing at a systemic level.
- tshaddox 1y ago
  > I think a congressional pardon power to allow national leniency on previously accepted sentences that are now viewed as unjust might be worth holding onto. That sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. For the branch of government in charge of making and changing laws.
  - HaZeust 1y ago
    It sounds more fit for the branch of government in charge of enforcing the laws. Specifically, with laws that are made by the branches responsible for making/changing them, which would be ridiculous on their face. If the branch responsible for making and changing laws was also responsible for the reversion of enforcing those laws - effectively what a pardon is - then there's absolutely no check on gratuitous law being passed.
    - tshaddox 1y ago
      > If the branch responsible for making and changing laws was also responsible for the reversion of enforcing those laws - effectively what a pardon is - then there's absolutely no check on gratuitous law being passed. I mean, it is a normal thing for a legislature to remove and amend old laws. That's not "a check," but it's a normal part of what it means to be a legislature. You're not just appending new laws, you're maintaining the entire set of laws. And as for checks, judicial review is the obvious one.
      - HaZeust 1y ago
        Neither are steadfast. If we relied on either the Legislative or Judicial branch to take action granting cohesive resolve for Confederates post-Civil War - in lieu of Lincoln's 12/8/63 amnesties as a power vested to him through executive pardons, the Union would have collapsed. Outside of amnesty from Lincoln, it took the next acting branch - the Legislative - 7 years after Robert E. Lee's 1865 surrender for their actions regarding the Civil War to be seen (1872 Amnesty Act). And, in the systematic event that a law is passed that is grotesque - from the legislative, or in the individual event that a miscarriage of law is applied to an individual case - from the judicial; we need a quick check and balance for either scenario - and the Executive branch is (typically, and on average) the fastest-acting branch of the 3. Lest, one bad-faith branch can reliably depend on its complementary power to be too slow to act (which is happening now, in many ways). As a result, the executive needs to add tension for either event, and just "Legislative <-> Judicial" having checks against one another in relation to laws, and the judicial proceedings concerning the laws, is not enough.
        tshaddox 1y ago
        It’s easy to focus on the exceptional cases and say we need “one more level” to be able to override all the other levels. But it’s not clear to me that this is a useful way to frame things. After all, what do you do if you’re “one more level” is the one that commits a miscarriage of justice? What if an executive pardons political or business friends simply for being friends?
        1y ago
dragonwriter 1y ago
> The power to pardon needs to be removed all together. All it does is show that the President overrides the department of justice. The Department of Justice is subordinate to the President as part of the executive branch with or without the pardon power; if you want something other than "the President overrides the Department of Justice" as a matter of Constitutional law rather than an intermittently-observed convention of restraint (which Trump absolutely has not observed outside of the pardon power), you need a fundamental reformation of the Constitutional structure of government, far beyond the elimination of the pardon power.
- IAmGraydon 1y ago
  While it’s true that the Department of Justice sits within the executive branch, the assertion that it is simply “subordinate” to the President - functioning as his personal legal arm - is an oversimplification that misses both the design and evolution of constitutional governance. The President does not have unlimited authority over the DOJ. The DOJ’s powers are exercised pursuant to laws enacted by Congress, and its officials - especially the Attorney General and U.S. Attorneys - swear oaths to uphold the Constitution, not to serve as personal agents of the President’s will. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that while the President may remove executive officers, he cannot lawfully direct them to commit acts that are unconstitutional, obstruct justice, or violate statutory mandates. The constitutional structure also relies on normative independence - a separation within the executive branch that maintains rule of law. This is not a “convention of restraint” but an operational necessity derived from the Take Care Clause (“he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”). That clause doesn’t mean “whatever the President says is law”; it means the President must ensure that the law itself is enforced faithfully, even when doing so constrains his own interests. Finally, while the pardon power is broad, it’s not the linchpin of executive authority over the DOJ. Removing or limiting that power wouldn’t change the fact that the DOJ’s prosecutorial discretion must still be exercised consistent with law, ethics, and constitutional constraints - not simply the President’s personal preferences. Our system is not designed for a monarch with “absolute control” over prosecutions. It’s designed for a chief executive bound by law and accountable through oversight, impeachment, and ultimately, the electorate.
FridayoLeary 1y ago
I heard the intention was that sometimes it's against the public good to prosecute some people even though they have comitted crimes. Good examples of it being used as intended was pardoning the perpetrators of the whiskey rebellion, the confederate army, vietnam draft dodgers and more controversially, Nixon. I guess it's also intended in cases where obvious miscarriages of justice have been committed. It made sense in 1785 or whenever but along with lots of the rest of the constitution it's long obsolete and has been twisted, stretched and mangled into a hideous caricature of itself over the centuries.
- YouAreWRONGtoo 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - I-M-S 1y ago
    The US Constitution wasn't written with the wellbeing of random ordinary citizens in mind. You could argue it was the exact opposite in fact.
    - estearum 1y ago
      More importantly it was written under the assumption that political elites would understand and act against the risk of electing a broken demagogue. But alas, the modern GOP’s cravenness beggars belief.
  - neilv 1y ago
    I think you're onto something, for a kind of second-chance review function, but instead of "with an Ivy League education", perhaps you most want people knowledgeable about both judicial process and society. "Ivy League education" isn't a totally bad predictor, but it's going to be very biased towards people with privileged socioeconomic backgrounds, who therefore may have blind spots of aspects of society that apply to the situation. (No matter how many books they've read, classes they've taken, years of volunteering with the less-advantaged they've done, and hours of NPR they've listened to.)

The power to pardon needs to be removed all together. All it does is show that the President overrides the department of justice. How anyone ever thought this should be a thing, I have no idea.

munk-a 1y ago

I think a congressional pardon power to allow national leniency on previously accepted sentences that are now viewed as unjust might be worth holding onto. It being such a casual presidential power has made it ripe for corruption for a long time but I would weigh that with civil rights era pardons for sham trials - I think we do still need a national sanity check relief valve for local injustices. And the dysfunction of congress probably works in our favor here since pardons should be exceptional - not routine. A routine pardon is just a demonstration of the justice department failing at a systemic level.

tshaddox 1y ago
> I think a congressional pardon power to allow national leniency on previously accepted sentences that are now viewed as unjust might be worth holding onto. That sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. For the branch of government in charge of making and changing laws.
- HaZeust 1y ago
  It sounds more fit for the branch of government in charge of enforcing the laws. Specifically, with laws that are made by the branches responsible for making/changing them, which would be ridiculous on their face. If the branch responsible for making and changing laws was also responsible for the reversion of enforcing those laws - effectively what a pardon is - then there's absolutely no check on gratuitous law being passed.
  - tshaddox 1y ago
    > If the branch responsible for making and changing laws was also responsible for the reversion of enforcing those laws - effectively what a pardon is - then there's absolutely no check on gratuitous law being passed. I mean, it is a normal thing for a legislature to remove and amend old laws. That's not "a check," but it's a normal part of what it means to be a legislature. You're not just appending new laws, you're maintaining the entire set of laws. And as for checks, judicial review is the obvious one.
    - HaZeust 1y ago
      Neither are steadfast. If we relied on either the Legislative or Judicial branch to take action granting cohesive resolve for Confederates post-Civil War - in lieu of Lincoln's 12/8/63 amnesties as a power vested to him through executive pardons, the Union would have collapsed. Outside of amnesty from Lincoln, it took the next acting branch - the Legislative - 7 years after Robert E. Lee's 1865 surrender for their actions regarding the Civil War to be seen (1872 Amnesty Act). And, in the systematic event that a law is passed that is grotesque - from the legislative, or in the individual event that a miscarriage of law is applied to an individual case - from the judicial; we need a quick check and balance for either scenario - and the Executive branch is (typically, and on average) the fastest-acting branch of the 3. Lest, one bad-faith branch can reliably depend on its complementary power to be too slow to act (which is happening now, in many ways). As a result, the executive needs to add tension for either event, and just "Legislative <-> Judicial" having checks against one another in relation to laws, and the judicial proceedings concerning the laws, is not enough.
      - tshaddox 1y ago
        It’s easy to focus on the exceptional cases and say we need “one more level” to be able to override all the other levels. But it’s not clear to me that this is a useful way to frame things. After all, what do you do if you’re “one more level” is the one that commits a miscarriage of justice? What if an executive pardons political or business friends simply for being friends?
        1y ago

dragonwriter 1y ago

> The power to pardon needs to be removed all together. All it does is show that the President overrides the department of justice. The Department of Justice is subordinate to the President as part of the executive branch with or without the pardon power; if you want something other than "the President overrides the Department of Justice" as a matter of Constitutional law rather than an intermittently-observed convention of restraint (which Trump absolutely has not observed outside of the pardon power), you need a fundamental reformation of the Constitutional structure of government, far beyond the elimination of the pardon power.

IAmGraydon 1y ago
While it’s true that the Department of Justice sits within the executive branch, the assertion that it is simply “subordinate” to the President - functioning as his personal legal arm - is an oversimplification that misses both the design and evolution of constitutional governance. The President does not have unlimited authority over the DOJ. The DOJ’s powers are exercised pursuant to laws enacted by Congress, and its officials - especially the Attorney General and U.S. Attorneys - swear oaths to uphold the Constitution, not to serve as personal agents of the President’s will. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that while the President may remove executive officers, he cannot lawfully direct them to commit acts that are unconstitutional, obstruct justice, or violate statutory mandates. The constitutional structure also relies on normative independence - a separation within the executive branch that maintains rule of law. This is not a “convention of restraint” but an operational necessity derived from the Take Care Clause (“he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”). That clause doesn’t mean “whatever the President says is law”; it means the President must ensure that the law itself is enforced faithfully, even when doing so constrains his own interests. Finally, while the pardon power is broad, it’s not the linchpin of executive authority over the DOJ. Removing or limiting that power wouldn’t change the fact that the DOJ’s prosecutorial discretion must still be exercised consistent with law, ethics, and constitutional constraints - not simply the President’s personal preferences. Our system is not designed for a monarch with “absolute control” over prosecutions. It’s designed for a chief executive bound by law and accountable through oversight, impeachment, and ultimately, the electorate.

FridayoLeary 1y ago

I heard the intention was that sometimes it's against the public good to prosecute some people even though they have comitted crimes. Good examples of it being used as intended was pardoning the perpetrators of the whiskey rebellion, the confederate army, vietnam draft dodgers and more controversially, Nixon. I guess it's also intended in cases where obvious miscarriages of justice have been committed. It made sense in 1785 or whenever but along with lots of the rest of the constitution it's long obsolete and has been twisted, stretched and mangled into a hideous caricature of itself over the centuries.

YouAreWRONGtoo 1y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- I-M-S 1y ago
  The US Constitution wasn't written with the wellbeing of random ordinary citizens in mind. You could argue it was the exact opposite in fact.
  - estearum 1y ago
    More importantly it was written under the assumption that political elites would understand and act against the risk of electing a broken demagogue. But alas, the modern GOP’s cravenness beggars belief.
- neilv 1y ago
  I think you're onto something, for a kind of second-chance review function, but instead of "with an Ivy League education", perhaps you most want people knowledgeable about both judicial process and society. "Ivy League education" isn't a totally bad predictor, but it's going to be very biased towards people with privileged socioeconomic backgrounds, who therefore may have blind spots of aspects of society that apply to the situation. (No matter how many books they've read, classes they've taken, years of volunteering with the less-advantaged they've done, and hours of NPR they've listened to.)