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Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons

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Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons

#11

Post by vidluther »

kupadapuku wrote: post #6

Love this idea - if I were to extend it, I'd add some kind of analysis breaking down the % composition of pardons (fraud vs drug offences vs financial crime) by President to see if there's some common trend. I was a little surprised to see the Obama number quite so high, until it became apparent that the vast majority were drug offenders being pardoned

A bunch of mass commutations have occurred under Obama, Biden, and most recently under Trump, I'm working on a comparison tool, so we can visualize the change in number of pardons by president, further breakdown of composition is an interesting idea as well.

Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons

#13

Post by vidluther »

digdugdirk wrote: post #12

Your numbers seem a bit off on the second Trump term. Trevor Milton was on the hook for over half a billion dollars of restitution alone.

Thanks for the heads up on that.. there's a lot of massaging/cross checking that still needs to be done. Right now the numbers are based purely on what the sentence is described on the DOJ website.

https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-grants-president-don...

cmd-f trevor milton .. if the text for the sentence column doesn't say anything about a fine or restitution the system is not going to be able to figure that out.

The numbers for the prison time reduced is also technically incorrect, Ross Ulbricht, Rod Blagojevich and many others had already served many years in prison, so technically we should not count that as time reduced.

Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons

#14

Post by lelandfe »

vidluther wrote: post #9
koolba wrote: post #8

Are there any longer or more generic than this: > For any nonviolent offenses against the United States which they may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1 2014 through the date of this pardon ( JAN 19, 2025 ). https://pardonned.com/pardon/details/biden-family/ That’s 11+ years with no detail or description.

So this was the first time (i think) anyone got a preemptive pardon, the actual warrant on the DOJ website says what it says.. https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1385756/dl?inline Will have to crunch through the offenses in the db and see if anything else like this shows up.

Preemptive meaning they hadn't yet been convicted. Nixon was pardoned by Ford in this manner (for "all offenses against the United States" between Jan. 20, 1969—Aug. 9, 1974). Carter preemptively mass-pardoned draft dodgers, etc.

Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons

#15

Post by vidluther »

lelandfe wrote: post #14
vidluther wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this was the first time (i think) anyone got a preemptive pardon, the actual warrant on the DOJ website says what it says.. https://www.justice.gov/pardon/media/1385756/dl?inline Will have to crunch through the offenses in the db and see if anything else like this shows up.

Preemptive meaning they hadn't yet been convicted. Nixon was pardoned by Ford in this manner (for "all offenses against the United States" between Jan. 20, 1969—Aug. 9, 1974). Carter preemptively mass-pardoned draft dodgers, etc.

I did not know that. Thanks for the lesson.

Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons

#16

Post by nonameiguess »

kupadapuku wrote: post #6

Love this idea - if I were to extend it, I'd add some kind of analysis breaking down the % composition of pardons (fraud vs drug offences vs financial crime) by President to see if there's some common trend. I was a little surprised to see the Obama number quite so high, until it became apparent that the vast majority were drug offenders being pardoned

I'm pretty sure the numbers are going up simply because 1) 90s sentencing laws got insanely strict and prisons are full of old guys serving inflated sentences, 2) drug laws eventually became more lax and people are in prison for things that aren't even criminal any more, and 3) prisons have simply run out of space and it's easier to release people than build more.

This kind of topic is bound to bring up a lot of outrage, but I'd invite people to remember it's the Marc Richs of the old buying pardons that you should be directing that toward. There are plenty of people locked up for a very long time who really don't deserve it. I recall a Chumash woman I worked with at the LA County Museum of Natural History 24 years ago. I gave her a ride home a few times and eventually realized I was taking her to a halfway house, and it came out that the FBI has busted her in the early 90s for criminal conspiracy and her only actual offense was refusing to testify against her husband, who'd been selling marijuana on their reservation under the logic that he didn't believe US law should apply because of the historical treaties about tribal land. She did 10 years in federal prison for that.

Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons

#17

Post by Lio »

CobraMode wrote: post #7
ks2048 wrote: post #5

Just yesterday, Trump said he's going to “pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval.” [1] Free reign for crimes for the next 2.5 years. Maybe removing this pardoning power could be a bipartisan goal... I guess we shouldn't hold our breath. [1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-promises-pardon-ev...

As long as they can still pardon the turkey.

Pardon him for what? What is the charge here? Being a meal? Being a succulent Chinese meal?

Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons

#19

Post by vidluther »

nonameiguess wrote: post #16
kupadapuku wrote: post #6

Love this idea - if I were to extend it, I'd add some kind of analysis breaking down the % composition of pardons (fraud vs drug offences vs financial crime) by President to see if there's some common trend. I was a little surprised to see the Obama number quite so high, until it became apparent that the vast majority were drug offenders being pardoned

I'm pretty sure the numbers are going up simply because 1) 90s sentencing laws got insanely strict and prisons are full of old guys serving inflated sentences, 2) drug laws eventually became more lax and people are in prison for things that aren't even criminal any more, and 3) prisons have simply run out of space and it's easier to release people than build more. This kind of topic is bound to bring up a lot of outr…

@nonameiguess I agree on the pardon buying, the reason why I started looking into building this was because of a video by Liz Oyer, who pointed out all the restitution and fines that were being forgiven under Trump.

That's kind of how I came upon the name for the site, I wanted to see if there is any truth to the rumors that people are selling and buying pardons. In order to investigate that, we needed a set of data to start from, in a manner that was easily queryable as opposed to what's on the DOJ website.

Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons

#20

Post by [deleted] »

koolba wrote: post #8

Are there any longer or more generic than this: > For any nonviolent offenses against the United States which they may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1 2014 through the date of this pardon ( JAN 19, 2025 ). https://pardonned.com/pardon/details/biden-family/ That’s 11+ years with no detail or description.

[deleted]
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