Who Should President Paul's first pardons be?

[dude58677]

Well yeah.

 

[dude58677]

Only for federal crimes, not state or local level.

Well yea.

 

[erowe1]

I like starting with Snowden, Schiff, and other individuals of symbolic significance. But then he should waste no time pardoning all tax evaders. And then set up a committee of people to review people in federal prison on drug charges, and pardon as many as possible that are clearly not being punished for any crimes with victims.

Great topic.

Sadly, this is one that would have meant more with a Ron Paul presidency than a Rand Paul one. I don't see Rand doing any of these.

 

[RonPaulMall]

A President does not have to execute laws that are unconstitutional.

This is of course the position of Thomas Jefferson. The Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court all have the right to assess the Constitutionality of a law. It is not a special prerogative of the Supreme Court. So even if the Congress passes a law, and the Supreme Court upholds it, the President call still refuse to enforce it if he believes it is unconstitutional.

So he can pardon till the law is repealed

He could do that you are right, but I think that would be a pretty clear abuse of the system. The pardon power was never intended as a way of circumventing or overturning a law. It was never used that way historically. If a President were to do this, I think he'd be rightly impeached because if you actually believe in the Jeffersonian concept of co-equal power to interpret the Constitutionality of the law you'd simply do this:

or he can issue executive order to stop enforcement of an unconstitutional law..

you wouldn't play perpetual pardon games. You'd simply declare the laws on drug prohibition (for example) unconstitutional and order Federal agents not to enforce them.

 

[Christian Liberty]

You don't have to do it individually. General Pardons for piracy were common during the Golden Age of piracy. Jimmy Carter granted an almost blanket pardon to nearly all Vietnam era draft dodgers. But you can only pardon crimes that have been committed, not future crimes. So you can't in fact "change the law" through pardoning unless you kept on issuing pardons on a daily basis which might rightly earn you an impeachment since it would be a clear violation of the intent of the Constitution.

I can live with that

 

[Bastiat's The Law]

The pardon power is one of the most important functions of the President from a Constitutional standpoint, and one almost entirely ignored by mainstream Presidents of both parties. Who do you think should be on Rand's list of immediate, week one pardons? My thinking off the top of my head:

1. Edward Snowden
2. Julian Assange
3. Weev
4. Irwin Schiff

First three you'd pardon outright, Irwin Schiff you probably just commute the sentence. Eventually I'd like to see him reduce Bradley Manning's sentence too but probably shouldn't be in the first wave of stuff. Some of the Liberty Reserve guys are starting to get sentenced too. Goes without saying they should get full pardons or immediate commutations as well.

One game at a time, my friend.

 

[dude58677]

you wouldn't play perpetual pardon games. You'd simply declare the laws on drug prohibition (for example) unconstitutional and order Federal agents not to enforce them.

Whatever gets the job done.

 

[RonPaulMall]

Whatever gets the job done.

True, but I think we need to keep the focus on the politically realistic, not pie in the sky stuff. Even Ron Paul himself expressed skepticism towards offering blanket pardons for everyone convicted of drug and tax convictions. No way Rand is going to do something like that. What we should expect, and in fact demand is aggressive use of the pardon power on specific individuals to correct gross injustice or to remedy politically motivated witch hunts. Snowden should be a given. Weev and Hammond too. Assange I would be bitterly disappointed if he didn't pardon, but wouldn't fault Paul if he waited a few months after he took office before he did it. And I would expect Paul at some point to put together a office of people whose sole job is to look over all clemency and pardon requests and fast track them for immediate action by the President. There should be double or triple digit pardons coming out ever week for the entirety of Rand's eight years in office. There are thousands of ridiculously unfair sentences in the drug area alone that desperately need attention. Eric Holder even acknowledged as much when he talked about the need for mandatory minimum reform (of course, after admitting that there are all these people unfairly rotting in prison he and our scumbag in chief did nothing to help them even though all it takes is a stroke of Obama's pen to fix these injustices Obama's administration itself admits are out there!).

 

[satchelmcqueen]

manning!