https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...447f84-69ba-11e8-bf8c-f9ed2e672adf_story.html
Pardons are only for guilty people; accepting one is an admission of guilt.
In 1915, the Supreme Court wrote in
Burdick v. United States that a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it.” Over the years, many have come to see a necessary relationship between a pardon and guilt. Ford
carried the
Burdick quote in his wallet, defending the e pardon by noting that it established Nixon’s guilt. More recently, MSNBC host Ari Melber
taunted Arpaio by saying he had admitted he was guilty when he accepted Trump’s pardon.
But
Burdick was about a different issue: the ability to turn down a pardon. The language about imputing and confessing guilt was just an aside — what lawyers call dicta. The court meant that, as a practical matter, because pardons make people look guilty, a recipient might not want to accept one. But pardons have no formal, legal effect of declaring guilt.
Indeed, in rare cases pardons are used to exonerate people. This was Trump’s rationale for posthumously pardoning boxer Jack Johnson, the victim of a racially based railroading in 1913. Ford pardoned Iva Toguri d’Aquino (World War II’s “Tokyo Rose”) after “60 Minutes” revealed that she was an innocent victim of prosecutors who suborned perjured testimony in her treason case. President George H.W. Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger because he thought the former defense secretary, indicted in the Iran-contra affair, was a victim of “the criminalization of policy differences.” If the president pardons you because he thinks you are innocent, what guilt could accepting that pardon possibly admit?