Why it would be really, really bad for Trump to pardon Roger Stone.

[DetlefK]

A President cannot pardon a convicted person. A President can OFFER a pardon and then the convict must decide whether to ACCEPT the pardon.

And here's the crux: By judicial precedent (forgot which case), the acceptance of a presidential pardon is an admission of guilt.

So, by accepting Trump's pardon, Stone would confirm that the charges against him (including those involving Trump) are true.

A pardon of Stone would serve as a piece of evidence against Trump.





I'm willing to bet money that a WH lawyer is right now trying to wrestle a pen out of Trump's hand.

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Trump could care less about what

the Media or anyone would say about a Pardon. It is after all,all about Moscow Don.

[dweller]

2. thank you, as a nonlawyer

i knew it would be somehow wrong, and not sure legally why, for fat nixon to pardon someone guilty of crimes involving fat nixon himself... isn't that like pardoning himself?

✌🏼

[unblock]

7. such pardons would be held valid -- there's no way to overturn them;

however, they could form (further) articles of impeachment for abuse of power, misuse of office, etc.

[stevil]

3. Yeah

Optics play into it. The more reasonable conservatives I'm been reading think that there wouldn't be any pardons until after the 2020 election, win or lose.

[unblock]

8. yeah, i expect a lot of pardons in his last few days in office.

blanket pardons for his kids high up on that list.

[Ms. Toad]

5. It doesn't actually work that way.

The case you are referring to has very limited application.

The individual after being pardoned for all offenses wanted to assert his 5th amendment rights with respect to something for which he had been pardoned. The court ruled that he couldn't have it both ways - he couldn't accept the pardon - and refuse to testify as to matters covered by the pardon because acceptance of the pardon already served as his confession as to those testimonial matters that might otherwise put him in legal jeopardy.

It doesn't mean that that the charges against him that also involve trump are proven. It merely means that - if called to testify - he can't refuse on the basis that doing so would put him in legal jeopardy.

The question in the case is the effect of the unaccepted pardon. The Solicitor General, in his discussion of the question, following the division of the district court, contends (1) that the President has power to pardon an offense before admission or conviction of it, and (2) the acceptance of the pardon is not necessary to its complete exculpating effect. The conclusion is hence deduced that the pardon removed from Burdick all danger of accusation or conviction of crime, and that therefore the answers to the questions put to him could not tend to or accomplish his incrimination.

Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915)

So - if subpoenaed to testify against Trump as to matters for which Trump pardoned him, Stone could not refuse to testify on the grounds that it might incriminate Stone. Whether any testimony he gives after being pardoned implicates Trump is an entirely different matter - he is free to testify consistent with the evidence or (if he is stupid) inconsistently with any evidence he may have asserted at that trial.

[unblock]

6. this is a common misunderstanding.

accepting a pardon does not, in all circumstances, constitute an admission of guilt.

this is obviously true when considering people convicted of heinous crimes but later exonerated by dna evidence. having exhausted all appeals, a pardon is in some cases the only means left to right a judicial wrong.

it would make absolutely no sense to force an innocent person to admit guilt in order to be set free, the entire point of the pardon in such a case is because they're innocent after all.


as ms. toad points out, burdick was a specific case where the government was trying to get around the 5th amendment by pardoning him in order to compel testimony (the pardon having removed any legal jeopardy). the court made this determination in order to keep the government from pulling this kind of crap. that doesn't mean it applies universally to all pardon cases.

[DetlefK]

9. The purpose of a pardon is not to establish innocence.

The purpose of a pardon is to do away with the punishment. The guidelines for which convicts qualify for a presidential pardon explicitly state that one must take into account whether the convict shows remorse.

Why would an innocent person show remorse for a crime they didn't commit?

[unblock]

10. Right. Such guidelines don't contemplate factual innocence

the government doesn't actually like to admit that it gets it wrong ever, never mind more than most people would like to admit.

Hence the pardon is used mostly for people who are guilty but turned their lives around or were sentenced to harshly or maybe there were extenuating circumstances.

But that doesn't cover all the cases.

At its core, the pardon power simply puts an end to government prosecution/punishment for an alleged crime. It doesn't need to go into why, so it doesn't need to actually get into innocence or guilt in all cases. Merely that for whatever reasons, the government should cease pursuing the case or cease punishing the accused.