• madcaesar@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    There are good reasons, but those reasons only exist in some utopia once in a lifetime bullshit crap, like pardoning draft dodgers for Vietnam.

    Apart from that it seems its always been used for absolute bullshit

    • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
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      2 days ago

      I didn’t even know that Carter did that. Fucking good. Drafting people into such an overtly bullshit war was straight up evil.

      • sqw@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 day ago

        “miscarriages of justice”? but i agree that those should not be arbited by the executive

        • 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          If the miscarriages of justice is proven aren’t people automatically released. What does a pardon have tondo with anything here?

          • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
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            1 day ago

            drug crimes, for example… if the US govt decided selling weed is all of a sudden no longer a crime, that doesn’t automatically release people from prison

            or if someone did something technically illegal, but the circumstance around it made it clearly the moral choice (perhaps something like whistleblowers)

            the world is messy and no law perfectly covers all bases… pardons are the same as prosecutorial or police discretion. in an ideal world, the harshness of the law should be tempered by morality of the individuals at many levels

            of course that falls apart when the morality at every level is non existent, but that is legitimate purpose/reason. imo the discussion shouldn’t be about the overall legitimacy of the powers themselves, but in the trade-offs and lack of real protections from abuse, or who gets to have a say in those things

            • matlag@sh.itjust.works
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              1 day ago

              I still don’t see a good reason you couldn’t go through a bill, running in front of congress, for this, as well as the Vietnam draft dodgers mentioned above.

            • matlag@sh.itjust.works
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              1 day ago

              I still don’t see a good reason you couldn’t go through a bill, running in front of congress, for this, as well as the Vietnam draft dodgers mentioned above.

              • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
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                1 day ago

                because entire laws aren’t meant to handle individual cases. making laws is slow and laborious, and is meant to cover the broad strokes

                the real fix is to have a panel or something, similar to how you have judges etc now, and i’m sure there are other solutions

                the fact that the currently implementation is rife with abuse - and only pretty recently at that - isn’t a reason the whole thing shouldn’t exist (which is what the thread was about)