As the tar buckets are heated across Mississippi, it's worth noting that in their fury over the pardons issued there last week by Haley Barbour on his way out of the governor's mansion, Mississippians could do real damage to an important safety valve in the American justice system.
That there were so many pardons all at once was enough to raise anyone's eyebrows. Barbour, a two-term governor who left office Tuesday due to term limits, issued 215 pardons in the days leading up to his final official hours. And at least four of them appear to have been convicted killers, making even many of his supporters go cold at news of the reprieves.
But what's been left out of the discussion is that there are two sorts of pardons, one sort that is nearly always bad for a democracy and another sort that often is just what it needs. And for all the controversy Barbour's sweeping moves last week caused, they fall squarely in the better sort. (See the 10 notorious presidential pardons.)
That's the kind of pardon that is issued after an investigation has led to a trial, and a trial to a verdict and a verdict to a sentence. In other words, after the public has been able to learn what it deserves to know about the horrible crimes committed. Sometimes these pardons smooth out the at times tragic rough spots in an imperfect system of justice that can sometimes create its own victims. And other times, they can give room for a different concept altogether, one that sometimes forgives even the truly guilty. It's something called mercy.
The other kind of pardon ? and none of Barbour's were this kind ? is a preemptive move to forestall justice. That's the kind of pardon President Gerald Ford extended to Richard Nixon, or President George H. W. Bush issued to Iran Contra figures. Bill Clinton, too, granted a pardon to fugitive financier Mark Rich, freeing him from ever having to face trial for his alleged crimes.
In those cases, pardons flowed from the unappealable decision of a single individual to stop criminal investigations before the public could learn their secrets. We're still arguing as a country over whether Ford's pardon of Nixon was the right thing to do, but everyone can agree that such bald interventions in the justice system leave the public in the dark about what the investigations and trials might have discovered.
Executive clemency doesn't always take the form of full pardons. Presidents have also commuted sentences they feel are too harsh without removing the taint of the conviction. President George W. Bush did just that when he commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. "I respect the jury's verdict," Bush said at the time. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison." Scooter was a free man, but remains a felon. (See why Barbour is 'at peace' with pardons.)
Governors, too, have made similar use of pardon powers, which vary in strength and scope from state to state. A 2010 law-journal article said 33 states keep the governor as sole arbiter of pardons, while others use clemency boards or other setups. Sometimes they issue pardons long after a convict has served his or her time, in order to simply remove the taint of the initial conviction, or to simply restore the convicts right to vote or carry guns. But perhaps none have used the power so brazenly as Ernie Fletcher, who was governor from of Kentucky from 2003 to '07.
After nine employees were indicted in an investigation of corrupt hiring practices within the Kentucky Department of Transportation, Fletcher issued a pardon for all nine ? and then stunned the state by declaring his pardon also covered "any and all persons who have committed, or may be accused of committing, any offense up to and including the date hereof, relating in any way to the current merit system investigation." Fletcher's blanket pardons not only ended the cases against the nine officials who had been indicted, but also preempted any future investigation into anyone else for any possible crimes related to the hiring scandal.
See photos of Milwaukee's law enforcement.
'); } } // REQUIRED VALUES google_ad_client = 'ca-timeinc-time-bah'; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '3'; // OPTIONAL, USED google_ad_type = 'text'; // type of ads to display google_ad_channel = 'article'; google_safe = 'high'; // -->
freetown nicole scherzinger modern family troy davis troy davis cough new facebook layout
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন