Missouri governor pardons couple who aimed guns at BLM protesters

[Dill]

(08-09-2021, 11:41 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: You have again utterly failed to address the actual reason for the pardon, which is the gross prosecutorial misconduct admitted to by the DA, and which now has the DA in very serious jeopardy of being disbarred.  You fail to address it because you know it proves my point.  Your constant dodging of this most salient point is very telling. . . .

You keep using the comparison between the two, completely unrelated, cases as if it somehow invalidates the McClosky pardon.  Either the pardon was warranted or it was not.  My position is that it absolutely was due to the gross miscarriage of justice caused by the severe abuse of the DA's office.  If you disagree, and you've yet to articulate a logical argument as to why, then that's fine.  But don't act like you've provided an ironclad argument against it, because your position is totally lacking in substance.

Let’s test the bolded statements, starting with the last.

In posts #28, 30 and 31, I’ve explained the purpose of the institution, the theoretical foundation which determines the general criteria to be considered in granting pardons. These do not include helping friends and advancing partisan causes.

The next step: in #30 and 31, I've examined whether the McCloskey case meets the traditional criteria for a pardon. And I conclude it fails to do so—e.g., the convicted have not suffered serious harm (from misdemeanor fines), their legal recourse has not been exhausted; and while actually guilty, they are unrepentant. Parsons himself marked another criterion when he said, regarding the Strickland case, that news attention should not be grounds for pushing cases ahead of the line, given Missouri’s 3,000 case backlog. Difficult to see how the McCloskey case meets that one, either.

And governor Parsons’ stated “actual reason” for pushing the McCloskeys to the head of the pardon queue was to secure the right of Missouri residents to “stand their ground”—a defense of the Castle Doctrine, a partisan political cause.

Anyone familiar with legal reasoning would see a “logical argument” here, systematically expounded upon actual legal theory, precedent and practice. The conclusion regarding the McCloskeys follows from separately articulated premises (legal standards). It is the failure to meet the traditional criteria for pardon that “invalidates” the McCloskey pardon, not the comparison to an “unrelated” case.

You’ve defined neither the purpose nor the criteria for pardon, nor shown how the McCloskey’s have suffered serious harm, exhausted legal recourse, or shown repentance—though they were bumped right to the head of the line.

Instead, you continue to assert there is a “real point,” an "actual reason" for the pardon that others are missing or ignoring or "don't have the balls to address," or are now "dodging."

And that “actual reason” is not the one stated by the governor, but “severe abuse of the DA’s office” which is a “gross miscarriage of justice”—leading to misdemeanor fines.

If your "prosecutorial misconduct" were really the "actual reason,” it would not accomplish any of the usual goals of a pardon. Given you have not yourself articulated any alternative legal theoretical framework which would explain why “prosecutorial misconduct” has created sufficient harm to warrant pardon at all, much less bump the McCloskey’s and their terrible MISDEMEANOR FINES to the head of the line, it looks like you just selected your "actual reason" because of its emotional magnitude for you (as Parsons selected his), and on the basis of your unarticulated and undefended assumption that pardons can be about prosecutors regardless of harm to defendants. Without that legal framework of defined purpose and criteria, you have nothing to measure the case against except your own subjective “impression” -- there has been “gross injustice” because SSF says so.

Finally, it truly "lacks substance" to repeatedly asserting that people are ignoring or misreading or twisting what you say without the capacity to demonstrate you’ve been misread or twisted. You certainly cannot do that if you can’t even show you understand the other fellow’s argument, and you cannot show you understand it without taking some time (I almost said "having the balls") to actually work through the “boring” parts.