• MerryJaneDoe@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    It seems a LOT easier to just take away pardons entirely. They are abused more often than not.

    Yeah, it sucks for innocent folks. But their sentence can still be commuted.

    • BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      16 hours ago

      The fact we still have the death penalty that’s still unjustly applied across race is every reason pardon powers should stay in effect. Controls need to be in place for certain for them but getting rid of them I feel is a slippery slope into further punishment incarceration for minor infractions, especially POC.

      • MerryJaneDoe@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        Seems to me that this is a great argument for getting rid of the death penalty. It’s a win-win. No more pardons for the guilty, no more executions for the innocent.

      • Alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        Pardon powers have been in effect while this was unjustly applied.

        I understand the impulse, but they frankly don’t contribute meaningfully to the actual criminal justice system.

        After Richard Nixons pardon, It should have been unequivocally. Fucking. Over.

      • SabinStargem@lemmy.today
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        15 hours ago

        Part of an overhauled America, would likely entail a redoing of all kinds of things. Including a standardization of criminal codes - getting rid of legacy criminal qualifications in every state, and starting fresh from a clean sheet design. Over time I expect that sort of thing to eventually devolve with the introduction of new codes, but we can enshrine things.

        For example, requiring attorneys to switch between defense and offensive roles, allowing both sides to pick their representatives, make it so that all legal representation is free, standardize records of lawyers for people to review, ensure juries are split in half, each receiving an explanation of the defense or offense at the same time, ect.

        To sum up: make it harder to game the legal system, and give the prosecution and defense equal standing. Right now, prosecutors get too many advantages.

        Probably a topic best for the Legal Eagle team to roundtable and do some game theory on.

    • SabinStargem@lemmy.today
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      15 hours ago

      In theory, pardons can be good for national security stuff. But yeah, outright elimination is definitely an option worth considering. There is a lot of baggage in the Constitution that wasn’t…good. We have much more hindsight to work with than the Founding Fathers.