Is it possible to decline a pardon? If so, isn’t accepting a pardon a tacit admission of guilt?
If I were offered a pardon tomorrow for federal crimes of kidnapping and child rape, I would decline it unreservedly as the association of my name with such charges is a gross libel. (Now, if I were Jared from Subway, I might very well welcome such an offer.)
Cass was in Thunder Bay INSTEAD OF China Beach.
Yes, it is. US v. Wilson, 32 U.S. 150 (1833). George Wilson robbed the Reading, Pennsylvania mail and threatened the life of the mail carrier – a then federal capital crime for which he was convicted and sentenced to death.
President Andrew Jackson pardoned Wilson’s death sentence, which had the effect of commuting his sentence to life in prison, but Wilson refused to accept the pardon – essentially saying he’d rather die than spend his life locked up. So the question the Supreme Court had to answer was: could Wilson refuse to accept the pardon?
And they said he could:
Yes, it is. Burdick v. US, 236 US 79 (1915):
Then again a preemptive blanket pardon such as Nixon’s includes any offences you “may have committed”. You don’t have to own up to a specific one. If asked I might say it is possible I may be on the hook for unlawful hunting or fishing in federal lands.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. That the river crossed a state border and my guide was 16 had nothing to do with it.
Does this mean that if, say, I were exonerated by DNA evidence and the governor pardoned me to bypass the whole asking for a retrial scenario, that I would be agreeing I was guilty by accepting the pardon? It can’t mean that.
Why can’t it mean that?
What about pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey each year? Is guilt assumed then as well?
It’s clearly guilty of being a turkey.
So was Nixon.
Regards,
Shodan
Yes, but he was pardoned so they didn’t slaughter him in the White House kitchen either.
Ask Morton.
But didn’t Reagan pardon Less Nessman for slaughter?
He had God as his witness.
I vaguely recall some news item about this… The quick route to freedom was a governor’s pardon, but the person involved refused to acquiesce that he was guilty to begin with. Not sure of the paperwork or whatever required to “accept” a pardon - do you have to appear in front of a judge and say so?
(IIRC, it was the fact that a pardon would bypass the long drawn out appeal process, so the guy would never get his day in court to be found not guilty.)
It can.
The prosecution wants to re-try you – they, at least, continue to harbor belief in your factual guilt for some reason. You can go to trial armed with your new DNA evidence or take the pardon, but the pardon carries with it a tacit admission of guilt.
To challenge the meaning (legal/colloquial) of “tacit” and “guilt”:
Is your last sentence, with one word change, comparable to:
“[…The Fifth Amendment, blah blah :)], but taking the Fifth carries with it the tacit admission of guilt.”
A) Is that sentence as “true” as yours which uses “pardon?”