Imagine if Trump resigned in order to have Pence pardon him and then once Pence was president he told Trump to f-off.
It should be noted that Ford’s pre-emptive pardon of Nixon was never tested in the courts.
I think the closest we can get is Ex parte Garland in 1866 where the Supreme Court ruled that a president can pardon anyone after the commission of a crime. In other words, the act had to be committed to be pardoned for it but you could be pardoned before being arrested or going to trial.
So, in that sense, accepting a pardon is an admission of having done whatever it is you are being pardoned for. Which throws the notion of a pardon for anything Nixon did wrong while in office as questionable.
Also, you definitely cannot issue a pre-emptive pardon like the Pope granted pre-emptive absolution for anyone who went on the Crusades. A president cannot hand a henchmen a pardon for anything they might do and then send them out into the world.
Portions of tape recordings were missing, and a couple of theoretical tapes were also missing. The Watergate investigation continued while Ford was in office, and one focus of the investigation was the “missing” tape (which never did turn up).
There was also good reason to believe that there was a duplicate set of tapes. In fact, when Deep Throat outed himself as W. Mark Felt, one of the first things he was asked was whether he had or had knowledge of duplicate tapes.
The portions of the one tape that were “edited” were pretty certainly Nixon speaking.
So, at the time, there was a real possibility someone was going to step forward with a taped confession of something very specific.
Pretty much everyone who might have known what that was is dead now, but at the time of the pardon, there were plenty of people who might have testified corroboratorally; the fact that Nixon not only accepted the pardon, but seemed pretty anxious to get it suggests that there was something pretty incriminating out there.
I think we’ve had this conversation recently, but the idea that a pardon is an admission of guilt seems to always link back to Burdick, and Burdick itself is a pretty clear example of what that can’t be right (at least in the sense that the OP is asking). Burdick was offered a pardon for “all offenses against the United States which he, the said George Burdick, has committed or may have committed or taken part in in connection with the securing, writing about, or assisting in the publication of the information so incorporated in the aforementioned article, and in connection with any other article, matter, or thing concerning which he may be interrogated in the said grand jury proceeding, thereby absolving him from the consequences of every such criminal act.” (emphasis added)
Especially with the bolded, that’s insanely broad. And while Burdick may be able to “plead pardon” if he were criminally charged, how could you possibly use something that broad in a civil case? Or even as a matter of public perception? Is he really admitting guilt to any crime we can imagine he may have committed (even if he clearly did not)?
I also note that pardons for innocence have long been a concept, both in writing and even in statute. One of the important uses of the pardon power was for people who were innocent, but for whom the post-conviction process offered no relief.
‘Politico’ journalist Garrett Graff says presidents typically reserve their most controversial decisions for their last weeks in office. In a new article, Graff lays out some of the norm-busting actions President Trump may take in the days remaining in his presidency. Trump is already blocking president-elect Biden’s access to classified information — and some worry he might destroy White House records and begin issuing pardons.
This thread is about the legal aspects of pardons, not a general discussion of Trump or his actions. Let’s drop this hijack and stick to the question in the OP.
Does a person actively have to accept a pardon for it to take effect? Can the prisoner be dragged kicking and screaming out of his cell and deposited on the street? If the DA sees the announcement of a pardon and declines to press their case against the defendant, same effect.
As far as a civil case goes, it does not really matter. As pointed out above, once pardoned a person cannot plead the fifth. So therefore your civil case will proceed with the other side having to admit to the facts without benefit of the fifth amendment, under the same risk of penalties of perjury as anyone else. If they decline to answer, that can be taken as weighing on the merits of their case.
Yes. It has to be accepted. It is definitely possible to refuse a pardon and it has happened:
“There is nothing peculiar in a pardon which ought to distinguish it in this respect from other facts; no legal principle known to the court will sustain such a distinction. A pardon is a deed to the validity of which delivery is essential, and delivery is not complete without acceptance. It may then be rejected by the person to whom it is tendered, and if it be rejected, we have discovered no power in a court to force it on him.” ~ United States v. Wilson, 32 U.S. 150 (1833)