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kentuck

(114,915 posts)
Mon Nov 10, 2025, 03:52 PM Monday

If you accept a "pardon", is it an admission of guilt ??

Thinking of all those people that Trump pardoned last night or early this morning, that is a lot of guilty people.

The attempt to steal the election of 2020 was a huge criminal enterprise, judging from the number of people willing to accept a pardon.

But that should come as no surprise to anyone.

9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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If you accept a "pardon", is it an admission of guilt ?? (Original Post) kentuck Monday OP
question posed by character in The West Wing! elleng Monday #1
I think that technically, the answer is yes... but for this crew, they just see it as a technicality and as... QueerDuck Monday #2
Pardoned on the federal level dweller Monday #3
Only in the court of public opinion sarisataka Monday #4
By itself? I should think not. DFW Monday #5
Attempted coup malaise Monday #6
From a technical legal standpoint? NO Wiz Imp Monday #7
Arguably the most famous pardon in US history Locutusofborg Monday #8
Acceptance of a pardon is an admission of guilt LetMyPeopleVote Monday #9

QueerDuck

(595 posts)
2. I think that technically, the answer is yes... but for this crew, they just see it as a technicality and as...
Mon Nov 10, 2025, 04:02 PM
Monday

a way to avoid consequences. They (and MAGA) incorrectly interpret a pardon as some sort of "proof" that the legal system is corrupt, or that it was a conspiracy that could only be rectified and set-right with a bogus pardon.

sarisataka

(22,144 posts)
4. Only in the court of public opinion
Mon Nov 10, 2025, 04:06 PM
Monday

Legally, no more so than taking the Fifth is an admission of guilt

DFW

(59,342 posts)
5. By itself? I should think not.
Mon Nov 10, 2025, 04:15 PM
Monday

Being from the South, and having heard stories of unjustly "convicted" of people, mostly minority men, languishing in jails for years or even decades for crimes they didn't commit, if a more enlightened judge/governor/president should be presented with such a case, and it seems obvious that to wait for the wheels of "justice" to slowly grind to the same conclusion of innocence would be cruel and unusual, I'd say that in such a case, a pardon should be granted immediately, and accepted just as quickly. Let the paperwork and the evidence turned up by the local Innocence Project continue, but any legal procedure that frees a wrongly convicted innocent is correct, and it implies by no means an admission of guilt.

Wiz Imp

(8,081 posts)
7. From a technical legal standpoint? NO
Mon Nov 10, 2025, 04:31 PM
Monday

From an implied social & moral standpoint? Absolutely Yes.

Locutusofborg

(575 posts)
8. Arguably the most famous pardon in US history
Mon Nov 10, 2025, 06:25 PM
Monday

President Ford's pardon of President Nixon was issued before Nixon had been indicted or charged with any crime so his pardon could not have been an admission of guilt., A Grand Jury did name Nixon as an "unindicted co-conspirator" though.

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