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PaperclipPerfector  20d ago (text post)   30974 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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Ex parte Garland states that presidential pardons are only for crimes after the crime's commission.

Is that actually true?

It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.

Since Ex parte Garland wasn't reaching the specific question of whether or not you can pardon crimes not yet committed, I think it would be dicta and (and ambiguously phrased at that), so I could see a court reaching a different conclusion (yes yes I just think it would be funny if Tom Clancy called a major legal development!)

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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