Does a Presidential Pardon weaken the case of the J6 Political Prisoners as they attempt to be "made whole"?
In the common usage, "Pardon" suggests they "did wrong" but were forgiven.
A large percentage of this nation thinks that the vast majority of the J6 prisoners were wrongfully prosecuted and imprisoned. We believe that the J6 prisoners were pawns...props in a very shabby act of political theater.
Their lives were up-ended. Their careers and family destroyed. Even people receiving Social Security had their benefits cut-off, thereby punishing their spouse's ability to afford the necessities of life.
Furthermore, after the results of the 2022 elections became known, evidence that could potentially exonerate the prisoners was destroyed wholesale, presumably to make it unavailable to the incoming, Republican House of Representatives. That seems like a grave bruising of the 4th and 5th Amendments and grounds for automatic expunging of rulings upon appeal.
Upon winning appeals, it seems like a class-action suit against the Feds/D.C. courts is warranted asking for damages + punitive. Since the primary actors in the Department of Justice were ipso facto violating the law (the Constitution), institutional indemnification SHOULD NOT be extended to them and they should be personally listed as actors in the suit.
But I am just an old guy living in the sticks. What do I know?
I want everyone involved in the arrest, prosecution, and detention of the J6 prisoners to suffer the same fate, for the same length of time, under the same conditions.
ReplyDeleteI do not want to hear “ we cannot stoop to their level”. BS. If there are not severe consequences then they will just do it again.
We won’t do this. This is why we lose.
I am fine with pardoning anyone who did not do damage or physically attacked officers. Their criminal records should be expunged.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the prosecution of those involved in the witch hunt of those same people.
I agree. A better method than pardoning should be used to exonerate them.
ReplyDeleteThere should be individual punishment for those who abused their official positions for lawfare, politicizing non political positions. Will it happen? I'm not hopeful.
Jonathan
Another old guy living in the sticks here. You are right, Joe. Blanket immunity would relieve the penance that all the infiltrator agents need, what they must account for.
ReplyDeleteWhat about that "GointotheCapitol" agent (goon)-that guy needs justice, and likely hunnerts or thousands of other goons as well.
I would submit HIRING the January Sixth Prisoners (that were not/are not federal goons) to be hired as prison guards for those convicted of any participation at all, in the "insurrection" ALL THE WAY UP THE FOOD CHAIN.
FJB takes on a whole new meaning, that pedophile sodomist.
Milton
Thank you. Not revenge. A reckoning.
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ReplyDeleteERJ - I am not a legal mind by any stretch of the imagination, but I do see a blanket pardon fraught with some peril in that it gives the Once And Future Resident's opposition a series of talking points to rally around (it is, after all, exactly what they are expecting him to do). The strategy is probably a little more nuanced than anything I can come up with, but likely involves things including acknowledging the destruction of evidence (and thus, no methodology to re-exam the cases, so the defendants should be released), a complete review of the hearings with the excluded items, and the ability to seek damages for unjust prosecutions.
ReplyDeletePerhaps said differently - the stage can be set by the incoming administration, but the process needs to be followed as the last thing to be desired is re-imprisonment following another turn in administrations because something was not followed.
Sentences should be reversed, records expunged.
ReplyDeleteI understand that a pardon implies that they did something wrong that requires forgiveness.
Now charge the Capitol police who fired "nonlethal" munitions at the protesters at point blank range, inflaming the situation and injecting violence into it. Charge Pelosi for engineering the entire confrontation. And charge all the FBI CI's and other LEO's in the crowd who agitated and instigated the violence.
The judges who ruled on all these cases bear the most weight. They saw what happened that day same as the rest of us. Where are the arrest warrant's for those FBI agitators? Why was the man who murdered the lady not tried in court? When they purged all the info by whose orders? Why are that not in jail? So many questions that will never be answered. This ranks up there will hillded phones, servers and Benghazi.
ReplyDeleteIn the US a suit for malicious prosecution against the Federal government generally takes the form of suing under 42 USC 1983 (deprivation of constitutional rights under color of law), but harder. 1983 cases are incredibly difficult to win, and a malicious prosecution subtype (absent completely silly* circumstances) is even harder. Simply put, there is 0 chance of J6 defendants winning these cases en masse. There is almost 0 chance of any of the individual J6 defendants winning even a single case (maybe in 1 or 2 cases there will be FOIA/leaked/discovered emails showing that person wasn't there and was prosecuted b/c a prosecutor didn't like them personally, which is the level of proof that would be needed).
ReplyDeleteWith the stroke of a pen President Trump can right 70% of the wrong of the J6 prosecutions. Without this there is virtually no path to even 70% of being made whole for the vast majority of the defendants. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. To accomplish your goal, however, President Trump can do two things:
1. He can explicitly state that he feels this is unnecessary in the pardon document and that it's intended to right a wrong (quickly) not to imply guilt. This doesn't fix the real issue and I'm sure the courts would limit it, but it helps with the conscience issue.
2. Pursue legislative remedies. I don't think this will work, but perhaps the pursuit itself helps people recover their sense of self-worth/standing in the community.
* The law here essentially requires the prosecutor to have pursued total fake charges without any basis is any colorable argument of law (no matter how stretched) for ill-reasons. Successful examples are as rare as hen's teeth, but it'd have to be (going off fallible memory here) something like telling a cop to keep pulling a guy over weekly and testing his breath for booze until the machine gives a false positive (as it might 1/20 times or so) and then bringing a prosecution for drunk driving.
Thank-you for your learned and professional opinion!
DeleteMy take-away is that a pardon, perhaps with some well-honed fine-print tucked in the tail-feathers of the pardon, would get the most of them most of the relief the quickest.
They will take that as weakness.
DeleteWell thought out and just=a vulnerability to attack.
You must understand the enemy.
They have a toddler mentality. You must deal swiftly and decisively to make an impact.
I wish it wasn’t so but it is.
While the future is unknown history would show that the J6 victims are unlikely to ever receive anything resembling actual justice and the criminals responsible for the orchestrated abuse will never suffered any actual consequences
ReplyDeleteI want every Fed/informant to go to jail for 20 years. Free all the citizens, duped into violence or not.
ReplyDeleteAnd a check to make them whole. Figure compensation based on what a Black gets for any official misconduct.
I hear Trump is thinking along the same lines.
ReplyDeletePiece of filth cocksucker just pardoned his Son for current and all future crimes covering a 10 year period?!?!?!
ReplyDeleteFUCK THAT BULLSHIT!!!!
I am not sure pardoning somebody for "future crimes" will pass legal muster. Whether it taints the entire pardon and nullifies it or not is an open question. A key consideration is one cannot enter into a contract if they are known to "not be of sound mind" and a pardon is similar to a contract.
DeleteOne issue is to find somebody with "standing" to file a challenge. Who is gouged by H.B. getting pardoned (other than the concept Rule-of-Law)?