Ex-sheriff Joe Arpaio found guilty of criminal contempt of court

[*PhilHos*]

(08-31-2017, 06:33 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: A pardon means he voids the conviction. Records expunged, all done. When it comes to things like this, the precedent Trump sets with this pardon is a dangerous one as it does send several messages. One, of cronyism, but the more important one is that the current administration seemingly does not see it wrong for public officials to violate the civil liberties of citizens of this country (forget about the immigrants, both legal and illegal), as well as violating a federal court order to continue doing so. I'm not disagreeing that if they win this case it can be a dangerous precedent, but to me, the precedent set with the pardon is more dangerous. Holding our public officials accountable is extremely important, and a pardon like this undermines the court's ability to do so and tells officials that the administration has their back in it.

C'mon, Bel, this isn't the first time a presidential pardon has been used like this.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-arpaio-pardon-has-plenty-of-precedents-that-got-other-presidents-in-trouble/

Quote:Pardoning someone who’s violated civil rights. One of the most controversial aspects of the Arpaio pardon is the fact that he was convicted for flouting a judge’s order to stop violating Latinos’ constitutional rights. However, it’s not the first time a pardon has been granted for civil rights violations: In 1981, President Ronald Reagan granted pardons to W. Mark Felt and Edward S. Miller, former FBI agents who were convicted of conspiring to violate the constitutional rights of anti-war radicals in the early 1970s. (Felt was later identified as Deep Throat.) Felt and Miller had authorized government agents to break into the homes of friends and relatives of fugitive members of the Weather Underground, the group that had taken responsibility for bombings at the U.S. Capitol, Pentagon and other government buildings. Reagan said he pardoned them because they acted without criminal intent “to bring an end to the terrorism that was threatening our nation.”



Pardoning a political crony or past associate. Even before it was formally announced, the Arpaio pardon was assailed by critics who said the move would be a clear act of cronyism, since Arpaio is a longtime ally and friend of Trump’s. But this isn’t the first time a president has pardoned a friend. On his last day in office, Bill Clinton issued a pardon for Marc Rich, a billionaire financier and the ex-husband of a major Democratic donor who fled the country after he was indicted on a wide range of charges, including tax fraud. Clinton also pardoned his half-brother, Roger Clinton, who had served time in the mid-1980s for selling cocaine to an undercover police officer.


Granting clemency to someone whose duty is to protect the public. Many people opposed to the Arpaio pardon warn that pardoning someone who broke the laws they swore to uphold sends a dangerous message. Yet in 2009, President George W. Bush commuted the sentences of two border patrol agents who had served less than two months of an eight-year sentence in federal prison for shooting a fleeing, unarmed drug smuggler and then trying to cover up their actions. Bush said he issued the commutations because the sentences were “excessive,” especially given that the agents were being held in solitary confinement for their own protection. Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, a former military intelligence analyst who was convicted of leaking classified information that was distributed on the WikiLeaks website. Critics said Manning’s actions put U.S. lives at risk abroad.


Granting clemency for crimes with a human toll. Over his long tenure as sheriff, Arpaio was accused of promoting or allowing inhumane conditions in his jails, physical abuse of inmates and spiraling suicide rates. In addition to policing tactics that included racial profiling, Arpaio created an outdoor “Tent City” jail, where thousands of inmates were housed in the sweltering Arizona heat and forced to work on chain gangs. This is probably the criterion on which the Arpaio pardon does stand out the most. But there are some similar cases. Obama, for example, commuted the sentence of Oscar Lopez Rivera, a 74-year-old Puerto Rican nationalist linked to a bombing in New York that killed four people, among other attacks.


Clemency as a policy tool. For advocates on both sides of the immigration debate, Arpaio’s pardon represents a clear endorsement of his aggressive tactics against undocumented immigrants, and perhaps a signal to local law enforcement that they can pursue similar strategies with the blessing of the executive branch. Controversial as Arpaio’s methods may be, though, the use of the pardon to further a president’s policy agenda is fairly common. Jimmy Carter gave unconditional pardons to hundreds of thousands of draft dodgers early in his presidency, and Obama pardoned and commuted the sentences of hundreds of nonviolent drug offenders who were serving long prison terms under federal mandatory minimum laws.



Pardoning someone who flouted the legal system. Marc Rich was an international fugitive on the FBI’s “Most Wanted List” when he was pardoned by Clinton in 2001. Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt said that Clinton had “thumbed his nose at the legal system” with the pardon of Rich, who was reportedly living in opulence abroad, had been in exile since 1983, and showed no intention of returning to the country to face justice.


Issuing a pardon before charges or sentencing are imposed. In 1992, George H.W. Bush [/url]pardoned six Reagan administration officials involved in the “Iran-Contra” scandal, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, even though he had yet to be convicted or, like Arpaio, sentenced. The scandal involved the covert sale of arms to Iran to support right-wing Nicaraguan rebels, and [url=http://articles.latimes.com/1992-12-25/news/mn-2472_1_iran-contra-affair]Weinberger had been charged with lying to Congress about knowledge of the sales.




Pardoning someone who hasn’t formally petitioned for clemency. Neither Felt nor Miller, the FBI agents pardoned by Reagan, filed a petition for clemency, noted Jeffrey Crouch, an assistant professor of political science at American University and the author of a book on presidential pardons. He added the decision to pardon them came directly from the president, rather than being filtered through the Department of Justice.



Issuing a pardon early in a presidency. A month after Nixon resigned, Ford issued a pardon exempting him from indictment and trial for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate burglary. Carter waited even less time to formally forgive the draft dodgers: that pardon came down one day after his inauguration in January 1977. Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama, on the other hand, all waited until they were more than a year and a half into their first term before issuing their first pardon – perhaps, according to Kalt, because they were aware of the political fallout that tends to accompany controversial pardons.

Essentially, Trump is not really setting any kind of precedent. And while I understand your concerns to how this could possibly effect future situations facing the court, taking away a power from the president that is specifically expressed in the Constitution with anything short of an ammendment is a far more worrisome precendent, IMO.