In the News Why Do We Have Pardons?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/2635847001

For those that just want a short summary, the former Kentucky governor Matt Bevin pardoned 428 people after he narrowly lost his re-election to Democrat Andy Beshear in November.

One of those pardons hired a hitman to kill his business partner right in front of his family, and the governor didn’t even give a reason... The others are even worse; it just seems to me that he did all of this just out of spite for losing...

 

I suppose sometimes it could be a good thing for various reasons, so the options should stay open. But it shouldn't just be some governor having infinite get-out-of-jail free cards.
It should have limitations and processes to go through, like any power.

 

It's good when the person giving the pardons doesn't abuse their power. On the other hand, it gives the ability to have someone do your dirty work for you, then let them get away with it freely, or simply to pardon out of self interest or spite. It certainly allows a politician to have someone do something for them illegally, and then pardon the person in question, which is incredibly messed up in my opinion. And as long as they didn't instruct the person to do it, there isn't a lot that could be done about it.

 

I just don’t see any strong positive examples or how it’s a good check against the judicial system. The best example I know of pardoning is Obama pardoning nonviolent drug offenders. While I do think drug and prison policy in the US need to be reformed, I don't think pardoning a tiny fraction of the people affected by it is the right way to go. Plus it gives the opposition ever more reason to pardon people the others don't like; which at this point it doesn't have anything to do with justice or whether the person committed the crime or deserves his/her sentence.

The worst examples I know of are this article and Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon. And the worst part is that it wasn't for a specific crime, but any crimes Nixon MAY have committed. So we didn't even learn what Nixon fully did... Some say that it was for the nation to "move on", but covering up the crimes is NOT justice and is how corruption persists.

TL;DR At best, the examples I know of of pardoning are a band-aid over a bullet-hole, and at worst, they are a tool for corruption and hiding the truth. I am wondering though if there are other genuine good examples that aren't just a way to make politicians not accountable for their actions.

 

I like the idea of pardons, but it doesn't work. It relies on politicians being good, morally sound people who can be trusted with power and the lives of others. Haha, that's definitely the case. Haha.

The best I can think of for pardons would be that it is decided by congress or something; that much power in one morally deficient person's hands is definitely a recipe for easy corruption (so give it to many evil people instead of one... maybe I didn't think this through...).

 

I guess it would be better for Congress to have a say in pardoning since like you said, it’s not just one person that hinges on stuff happening like what the Kentucky governor did. Maybe like you need 2/3rds of Congress (either the Senate, House, or both)?

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I feel that if someone was ever pardoned with the backing of 2/3rds of Congress then it would be a bi-partisan and straightforward and that the judicial messed up badly. Like REALLY badly. And I think that’s appropriate because pardons aren't meant to be used on a mass scale anyway and it prevents the President from just relying on his own party.

 

Yeah. One person shouldn't be able to decide innocence any more than one person should decide guilt.

 

Yey these threads are back