There has to be something harsher to punish this guy with. He intentionally denied 250 people access to a potentially life-saving vaccine. He put them at risk, and anyone they may come into contact with while affected. Would it be hyperbole to say that’s attempted mass murder? Not to mention furthering the “vaccines don’t work” message that’s being spread, thereby risking even more lives. This person is a monster.
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I seem to remember something about needing to admit guilt to accept a pardon. At least that was the discussion around Arpaio when they were talking about pardoning him ahead of him being sentenced. Interesting legal state none the less. admit guilt, have the sentence removed. There may be no legal repercussions in the end, but I wonder what sort of social repercussions that would still stand?
The current charges are state not federal, Trump can’t pardon those.
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You don’t need to admit guilt to be pardoned.
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In Burdick vs. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt, acceptance a confession of it”. So yes, if you accept a pardon you implicitly declare yourself guilty of whatever it is you’re being pardoned for. This has caused people (including George Burdick in the eponymous case) to reject a pardon.
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Statistically, what would have happened had this gone undetected is that a bunch of people would have received only one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine (it would be unlikely for a single person to receive two of the dud shots if there are three or four weeks between shots). From what we know about the vaccine so far, receiving just one dose already gives one pretty good protection against COVID-19, albeit perhaps not the 95% from the two-dose clinical tests. We give two shots to people to be on the safe side pending long-term evaluation of the vaccine.
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Everyone cites Burdick, nobody seems to read it.
From the article below:
But Burdick was about a different issue: the ability to turn down a pardon. The language about imputing and confessing guilt was just an aside — what lawyers call dicta. The court meant that, as a practical matter, because pardons make people look guilty, a recipient might not want to accept one. But pardons have no formal, legal effect of declaring guilt.
Indeed, in rare cases pardons are used to exonerate people. This was Trump’s rationale for posthumously pardoning boxer Jack Johnson, the victim of a racially based railroading in 1913. Ford pardoned Iva Toguri d’Aquino (World War II’s “Tokyo Rose”) after “60 Minutes” revealed that she was an innocent victim of prosecutors who suborned perjured testimony in her treason case. President George H.W. Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger because he thought the former defense secretary, indicted in the Iran-contra affair, was a victim of “the criminalization of policy differences.” If the president pardons you because he thinks you are innocent, what guilt could accepting that pardon possibly admit?
So are we now saying that Tokyo Rose DID admit to treason by being pardoned? Or all those pardons to people wronged by the government prosecution now means they absolutely were 100% guilty and they knew it?
It’s silliness. A pardon means the crime never happened. The supreme court saying 105 years ago that people would view a pardon as admitting guilt and judge it that way doesn’t mean that people must admit guilt to be pardoned.
You don’t need to admit guilt in order to receive a pardon. However, the pardon carries an imputation of guilt (not a legal declaration – as the WP article puts it, “pardons make people look guilty”) because if – like in the Tokyo Rose case – you’re not guilty in the first place, why would you have to be pardoned at all? In principle, the judicial system has its own methods of putting right miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions without a need to procure a presidential pardon for every victim of such. This applies especially if exonerating evidence comes to light after court proceedings have officially concluded.
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-cough- lowest bidder -cough-
“allowed” - no.
“forgiven” - nope.
“anticipated” - that’s another thing altogether…
But He told us Himself "“Then I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” That means he can pardon anyone for anything anywhere and kill all the demoncraps and get to ride in the Queen’s Golden Coach.
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