As I understand it, agreements made under unlawful duress are not legally binding. For instance, if someone were holding the remote to a bomb and he asks for immunity from prosecution and 1 million dollars, if the authorities agree to this they can renege the moment the suspect puts down the remote.
So I thought of an interesting hypothetical. Someone has kidnapped the President’s son/daughter/wife. The villain is holding a gun to their head, and makes the following demands :
1 million dollars in cash, and a blanket pardon of any and all crimes committed up until the present.
The President is perfectly willing to negotiate with terrorists when it’s his own son/daughter/wife on the line, and he agrees. Some documents are drawn up, all the relevant authorities sign it, and the terrorist puts down the gun. Upon his arrest, all these agreements are voided as they were made under duress, and the terrorist will never see the light of day again.
Ah, but this terrorist is smart. He whips out his smartphone and checks wikipedia for duress. He finds out the contract is voidable.
Is it possible for an agreement to be written in a way such that it can’t be reneged? The terrorist speed dials an attorney who is an expert on the matter.
If the terrorist is not satisfied that he won’t face prosecution, he will simply pull the trigger and then drop the gun. If he’s going to go to prison until they wheel him out in a body bag anyways, he might as well do the crime. So the Justice department has an incentive to make an agreement that appears airtight to both the terrorist and his lawyer.
You’re mixing up several different issues. Let’s try to sort some out.
First, the only difference a President has from anybody else is the power to pardon. This is theoretically absolute as far as it goes. The kidnapper could be pardoned for any crimes committed during the kidnapping; heck, the President can throw in a pardon for any crimes ever committed. But I said “as far as it goes.” The President can only pardon federal crimes, not state crimes. And the President can not pardon future crimes. As soon as he drops the gun, they’ll come down on him with life plus 10 years at hard labor in solitary confinement.
As for contracts, no contract is good if made under duress, as you said. And even if you found some magical language, what use would it be if the authorities came in and broke the agreement? What is he going to do - sue from jail? If he is given a ride out of town and a new identity what are the odds that he’ll be found having committed suicide by wrapping himself up in duct tape and sealing himself in a cement coffin at the bottom of the ocean?
You cannot have a system of law if there are magic words to get out of crimes. That’s what sovereign citizens believe, and they are some of the biggest nutcases on the planet.
If there were a way around it, then it would void the entire concept of duress. Contracts are to be freely bargained for and there is no good reason to allow a workaround.
Second, I would think in a situation where POTUS family was kidnapped, the VP and the cabinet would likely remove him from power temporarily because he wouldn’t be making good decisions at that time.
Probably the kidnapper’s best strategy would be to force the President to agree to some deal with Russia that politically the US can’t back out of because the Russians are going to hold them to, and then put himself under the protection of Russia.
Basically, you’re trading up from the President’s daughter as hostage, to the safety of the US or Europe as the hostage. But to pull something like that off requires having an ally who is a legitimate threat to the world and who is equally criminal.
Though I think that even under these circumstances, the kidnapper would only have the opportunity to leave unmolested. If tracked down at some later date and summarily executed, I don’t think the Russians would care.
I doubt Russia would participate in this sort of thing. This is more North Korea territory if you’re looking for safe havens, and I’ve read about the lives of some of the Americans who defected to North Korea during the Korean war (they basically didn’t want to fight any longer), and it’s pretty bad. Russia doesn’t want this kind of thing happening to a major power because it views itself as a major power, so I don’t believe it would harbor such a kidnapper.
The assailants got away essentially scott free, duress be damned the British Privey Council first upheld the amnesty and then much later said it was void.