here are my basic thoughts on what president bush did last night:
i'm not at all surprised that libby is not going to jail. i'm surprised (pleasantly so) that libby was not granted a full pardon. if bush was going to do anything, i would have thought he would have granted libby the ability to keep his law license. as far as i understand it, libby will probably now be disbarred for committing perjury. i'm assuming the "libby defense fund" will probably take care of the $250,000 fine that libby must pay. 2 years probation is still a big deal, and i'm glad that libby is still being marginally punished for this serious crime.
presidential pardons and commutations are wrong and should be eliminated from our political system. they're wrong now, as they were when bush I, reagan, and ford (despite the recent revisionist history that says that ford did the right thing in pardonning nixon) did them. and they were equally wrong when bill clinton, jimmy carter, and lyndon johnson did them. we need to get the executive branch out of the judicial branch on this issue (and my other issues, in my humble opinion). this incident once again proves that there is the law, and there is the law for the well-connected. it sure must be nice to know that your actions will be excused as long as you are good friends or a significant campaign contributor with the president of the united states.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
Do you not think that Presidential pardons/commutations are necessary in certain events where the current justice system fails? (ie: where the stacking up of mandatory minimums ties a judges hands, forcing him to sentence a first-time drug offender to 55 years in prison?, etc.) I agree it is a shame that the allowance can be abused to benefit the close friends of powerful people, and thereby hindering equal justice. I think, however, that due to the need to have a mechanism in place to fix errors of the system, we have to permit these minor deviations from equal justice & continue to rely on political accountability to prevent more dire misuses of power.
The Well Conected will always be taken care of. It is immature and naive to clamor for a life in which this isn't the case. I get tired of unrealistic people trying to make arguments based out of their social untopia. Get in the real world george.
interesting points pleming, and i think i would probably have a hard time in certain situations in denying a pardon if i were in the position of governor/president and was witnessing a blatant miscarriage of justice. for instance, i heard somebody in a sunday talk a week or two ago talking from a very similar line of thinking as yours who was criticizing mitt romney (who i am holding up as a good example of a leader NOT using the pardon system) in real world situation romney faced. apparently, there was this guy in massachusetts who wanted to become a cop. he did everything you needed to do to become a cop. training, education, fitness tests, etc. at the end of the day, b/c he had a very minor felony on his record from when he was 18 years old (i can't remember what it was, but it was pretty minor from what i recall: not a DUI or robbery or anything like that, maybe vandalism or s/thing like that), he could not become a cop. i think the man had also served in both iraq and afghanistan as a soldier. he petitioned for a pardon, and romney denied it. that's a tough, tough case, but ulimately, i think it's the right decision. the law is what needs to be changed, and maybe the legislature should write a law stating that if you have served in the armed forces, the minor felonies on your record should be erased, at least in consideration of becoming a cop. i don't think it's the role of the executive to be able to do that....
as to the points made by anonymous(a.k.a. the philosophe from new york and virginia beach, if i'm not mistaken!), i say "oh well then! if the well-connected will be taken care of, i guess we shouldn't point out when it's wrong to do! who am i to want to change the world?"
Matt Cooper makes the point that if you have a problem with presidential pardons and/or commutations, take it up with the Founders.
“The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.” Hamilton, Federalist 74
And the National Review online further notes:
“[T]he Founders also foresaw that the pardon power might be used for distinctly political purposes. George Washington pardoned the men who had taken part in the Whiskey Rebellion. Thomas Jefferson pardoned those convicted under the Alien and Sedition Acts. Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson granted amnesty to Confederate soldiers. Warren G. Harding pardoned prisoners held under World War I espionage laws. Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter pardoned Vietnam draft dodgers. And Ford famously pardoned Richard Nixon.”
I appreciate and respect your objective dislike for the prez pardon - you condemned W's use as well as Billy Clintons. In my opinion, if we've got it, and we do, and it's Constitutional, and it is, I think this is about as appropriate a use of the commutation as you can find.
thanks for your points, luther, and i think your argument is perfectly logical. i guess i'm just saying let's change the law and outlaw pardons. especially in the case of political allies of the president/governor/executive branch. do i think, as a friend of mine recently argued against, that libby is a dangerous man and really will benefit from prison? no, but let's respect the jury and judge (a bush appointee) that the sentence was appropriate and get the executive branch out of this area!
Well said.
And to all of us - where was this type of discussion during Con Law last spring?
Siegel scared me. I'm not so good off the cuff!
blaine, here is the actual account of that story i was talking about in reference to romney when he was governor (which is now surprising b/c he's now saying that bush did the right thing in commuting libby's sentence!!):
"As governor, Romney twice rejected a pardon for Anthony Circosta, who at age 13 was convicted of assault for shooting another boy in the arm with a BB gun - a shot that didn't break the skin. Circosta worked his way through college, joined the Army National Guard and led a platoon of 20 soldiers in Iraq's deadly Sunni triangle.
In 2005, as he was serving in Iraq, he sought a pardon to fulfill his dream of becoming a police officer.
In his presidential bid, Romney often proudly points out that he was the first governor in modern Massachusetts history to deny every request for a pardon or commutation during his four years in office. He says he refused pardons because he didn't want to overturn a jury.
During the four years Romney was in office, 100 requests for commutations and 172 requests for pardons were filed in the state. All were denied."
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/07/romney-on-libby.html
i'd like to thank Senator Barnes for providing this forum for respectful debate, and i too commend you on your principled position on this issue. (kissing butts is something i picked up in washington) thanks for sharing that story. that is interesting. i actually think its a shame Romney didn't exercise his power in light of the circumstances of that case. i completely share your concerns & i do believe that is unjust for a president abuse his power to make favors, or for other political purposes. It seems to me, however, that large-scale & major abuses of the power are very limited. and I'm just personally willing to accept the minor misuses of the power in exchange for a way to fix the errors of an inevitably imperfect justice system. While I don't put a lot of stock in most social-scientific studies, everyone else does and so i have to use them to make my points too. And a recent study shows that juries get the verdict wrong one out of six times... i think its appropriate to keep this extra "justice-preservation tool" available.
senator georgie that is!
blaine, read this:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/07/bushs-record-of.html
yup... but I think it has nothing to do with the fact that he was white & wealthy, and everything to do with the fact that he was a friend & as the blogger put it, an "apparatchik." Adding "white & wealthy" is just throwing words in to make a bad guy sound worse. Aside from that, I would have at least considered those memos if I were governor ;). but who knows how much consideration he may have given some of those cases... we really don't know, but it certainly does give the appearance that he didn't give them much thought.
Post a Comment