In the US accepting a pardon is considered to be an implicit admission of guilt; could this be used against the recipient as admission of civil liability if they sued in court?
I 'm not sure why it would matter.A pardon doesn’t erase the conviction - it eliminates punishment by the state. It has no effect on private wrongs - if you are convicted of manslaughter and pardoned , you will still be liable for wrongfully killing someone. That conviction is probably enough to find you liable for the wrongful death regardless of whether or not you accepted a pardon.
OP didn’t say anything about conviction.
True, but it’s not clear that “accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt” means anything other than
- Losing the right to appeal a conviction or
2 ) appearing to be guilty in the court of public opinion.
The second would have no effect on civil liability.
What about 3) Not being charged in the first place?
A federal pardon can be issued prior to the start of a legal case or inquiry, prior to any indictments being issued, for unspecified offenses, and prior to or after a conviction for a federal crime.
That would be appearing guilty in the court of public opinion - I’ve never seen anything to suggest that a pardon before being charged functions in any way as an admission of guilt.
That’s not what the OP is asking. Does accepting the pardon have any ramifications in civil court. If you don’t know, that’s fine. But nobody is asking about convictions or public opinion.
As an aside: Ford’s pardon of Nixon covered any federal crimes the guy had committed, or may have committed, or taken part in, over a period of years, right?
So if there were civil-suit slam-dunk ramifications for this supposed implicit-admission-of-guilt bit, well, then — what?
If I claim someone is at fault for a car accident in DC, and I sue her for damages, it’d make perfect sense for me to just say, uh, hey, remember when this was a criminal matter, and she was officially pleading guilty? Can’t we start there, and end with money in my pocket?
But would it make any sense for a guy to have sued Nixon for car-accident damages back when, saying, well, look, he accepted a pardon for whatever he did — so doesn’t that, by definition, include what I now accuse him of?
The way you frame it, it certainly seems silly to assume his acceptance would matter. But his pardon was also a very vague one. Many are much more specific. But those are also often well after a conviction so not really applicable here.
I’m not being clear - what I’m trying to say is the pardon makes no difference. If the pardon comes after the conviction , the conviction still exists and the pardon would not affect the civil case. If the pardon comes before being charged, I have never seen anything that suggests that sort of pardon actually legally functions as an admission of guilt. Many of them could not function that way ,as they either pardon a specific person for any crimes he or she may have committed ( which crime did Nixon admit to when he accepted a pardon? ) or they pardon unspecified people who committed a specific crime (Carter didn’t come up with a list of draft dodgers who were granted and accepted pardon s he just pardoned all of them) The OP presumes that accepting a pardon is an implicit admission of guilt - and I’m trying to say “not under all circumstances and for all purposes”
I’m trying to think of a scenario where it makes a difference in a suit for damages, and I can’t think of one.
However, I can imagine that a slander or libel suit could get dismissed pretty quick against someone who accepted a pardon, even while attempting to maintain factual innocence, and wanted to sue someone who wrote a book or article, or said something in an interview, that asserted their guilt.
Only if I go seriously bizarre, like if you (allegedly!) kill someone and get pardoned immediately. Does accepting that pardon affect the wrongful death suit. Or if you (maybe) commit financial crimes that have federal criminal and state civil implications. But I don’t know enough about financial crimes to say if that’s realistic.
Ignoring the part that doesn’t address accepting a pardon:
The OP does not “presume” anything. Can it be used as an admission of guilt. Not does it always under all circumstances and for all purposes. Can it.
No, the OP says
The correct GQ response to that is “not really.” There is no such formal legal implication. There’s some additional language in a hundred year old case that wasn’t actually related to the holding of that case, which some people have speculated would lead to a bunch of consequences in different circumstances. But those circumstances haven’t been tested.
Yes, the title says:
Can acceptance of a pardon be used as admission of guilt in civil court?
And yes, it is considered an admission of guilt, even if just informally – whether it does have any formal legal implications or not is the question. And it sounds like nobody has really tested it. In part because the circumstances for it to be relevant are unlikely.
Civil and criminal proceedings abide by different rules. I believe that any good civil attorney would be able to argue the acceptance of a pardon in a criminal matter does not meet the burden of proof that would be required in a civil matter by the plaintiff. In most cases I would expect that the civil plaintiff would want to see the evidence and arguments made by the prosecutors of a criminal case as support for his own civil case. With the acceptance of the pardon, there would be no criminal case to look over.
IANAL but I found this.
After Ford left the White House in 1977, he privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of Burdick v. United States , a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court decision that suggested that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that its acceptance carries a confession of guilt.[4][5]
Also interesting:
A grand jury was investigating whether any Treasury Department employee was leaking information to the press. George Burdick, city editor of the New York Tribune , took the Fifth and refused to reveal the source of his information. He was handed a pardon by US President Woodrow Wilson in a maneuver to force him to testify, but he refused to accept it or testify. He was fined $500 and jailed until he complied.
But, again: if it’s thereby “suggested that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that its acceptance carries a confession of guilt”, then what, exactly, was he supposedly confessing to?
Every unsolved murder in DC during that period? Why or why not? If a convenience store there burned down in one of those years, and maybe it was an inside job for the insurance money but maybe it was arson by a competitor, does it make any sense to say, uh, no; Dick Nixon confessed to it, didn’t he?
I know, right? Ford said it was full, free, and absolute—no matter what Tricky Dick had done. That article says Nixon did apologize:
I was wrong in not acting more decisively and more forthrightly in dealing with Watergate, particularly when it reached the stage of judicial proceedings and grew from a political scandal into a national tragedy. No words can describe the depth of my regret and pain at the anguish my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and the presidency, a nation I so deeply love, and an institution I so greatly respect.[12][13][14]
Maybe that’s an admission of a crime but 1) the pardon covered everything and 2) he could have kept his mouth shut.
Reading the title of the thread I expected it would come to a question like “Suppose DJT pardons himself for anything and everything he might have ever done wrong, even before but also including while presidenting. Is that a get out of jail card for things like tax evasion or rape charges or colluding with a foreign power…or anything at all? We all know OJ beat the first trial but not the second…so if accepting a pardon means admitting guilt, does that mean he would leave himself vulnerable?”
So I realize it hasn’t been done before but welcome to 2020. That Ford thing…heck, why wouldn’t all presidents give themselves a good pardoning for any and all misdeeds before leaving office? Is there no downside?
That presidential pardon would be a get out of jail free card for Federal crimes - but not for evading state taxes or for any other crimes where a state had jurisdiction.
It’s not clear if a president can pardon himself- it’s never been done. But if anyone tries it and there’s evidence of criminality the matter will surely end up being decided in court. And there are plenty of reasons to believe a president cannot pardon himself - there was even some question about whether Ford’s pardon of Nixon would have been legal if it was the result of a quid pro quo.
Is there such a list? I thought major corporations routinely donated to both parties and thus ensure that they have the ear of the winner.
If they say he can’t pardon himself, he can 1) resign, making Pence president, then 2) have Pence pardon him, and 3) the quid pro quo will get a legal test. From that article about the Nixon thing:
In a Washington Post story published the night Ford died, journalist Bob Woodward said that Ford once told Woodward he decided to pardon Nixon for other reasons, primarily the friendship that Ford and Nixon shared.[7]
Not exactly blind justice. He’s always asterisked in my brain as the POTUS who was essentially appointed by a crook, not elected by the voters.