Really terrific. Such fun to see overviews and then dig into the details to see how assumptions about each situation were inaccurate at first glance.
Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons
81–90 of 310 posts
Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ford did real damage that day.
The real embarrassment is how little effort there's been to limit/reform the pardon system since then. Pardons have valid uses, but it's wild that a single person can unilaterally pardon donators, family members, former presidents, etc, without needing so much as a simple majority confirmation vote in the House or Senate. The questionable pardons that we've seen over the last few years (and the Nixon pardon) are just…
Isn't that the whole point of all these pardon things? To reduce incentives to usurp power to avoid responsibility by providing less destructive for the political system ways to avoid responsibility.
Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's probably intentional on the DOJ's part at this point.
not sure why you think it's intentional. But, created a github issue, and will work on that today/tonight.. yay GLM 5.1 :) https://github.com/vidluther/pardonned/issues/23
I meant it's probably intentional that the data being represented differently on the DOJ's website, not your tracker website.
Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Friend, I hope you do not actually believe that man was selling dope because of his nuanced political theories.
Be that as it may, the jurisdiction I am living in has an explicit right to refuse to testify against a spouse. It is wild to me that one can construct a crime out of that, let alone one that warrants a decade of incarceration.
Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons
#85Are you able to track repeat pardons of the same offender? If not you have a bug.
https://pardonned.com/pardon/details/adriana-isabel-camberos...
Adriana Camberos was in fact pardoned twice.
In 2021, convicted fraudster Adriana Camberos was freed from prison when President Trump commuted her sentence. Rather than taking advantage of that second chance, Ms. Camberos returned to crime. She was convicted again in 2024 in an unrelated fraud. In 2026, Mr. Trump pardoned her again.
Full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/us/politics/trump-fraudst...
Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons
#86Have you created a linked data SPARQL endpoint?
Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons
#87We should at least ban the "preemptive" pardon if not all pardons. Pardon means forgiveness for a specific convicted crime, not a means to grant blanket immunity.
So I have mixed feeling on this.
I'm thinking of Carter fulfilling a campaign pledge to pardon draft dodgers. Whether you support that or not, he did what he said he was going to do and I'm sure only some of them had actually been charged in any way. I think that's a perfectly fine use for the pardon power.
Some will point to the Hunter Biden pardon. So two things can be true at once here: it was absolutely political prosecution AND Joe Biden was completely selfish with his action. At least do something for the people by, say, pardoning a whole bunch of low level drug offenders and decriminalize cannabis at the Federal level. But no, it was completely self-serving but his brain was pretty much gone by this point.
Here's the problem: Federal prosecutors have a ton of power. Conviction rates are 98-99%. But it goes beyond that. Federal prosecutors will intentionally bankrupt you to force you to take a plea. They might charge you with 15 felonies, 12 of which are basically bogus. You still have to defend those bogus felonies and that costs you money. And as soon as you run out of money, they'll offer you a plea where you're looking at 25 years on the 3 remaining felonies or you can just take 10.
The power imbalance is insane and the wealthy are essentially immune. If a US attorney decides to make an example of you, you're going to have a bad time, regardless of the facts.
Millions were spent dredging up some crimes for Hunter Biden and pretty much all they could come up with was doing crack and filling out a form incorrectly. Do you think anyone else would get that level of attention?
A very recent example of this is the Karen Read trial or, as I call it, the most expensive DUI prosecution in history. If you didn't follow the case, don't worry, there'll be any number of true crime documentaries. Millions were spent prosecuting Karen Read for killing JOhn O'Keefe with a completely ridiculous theory of the case and all sorts of evidence that went missing (including police officers disposing of their cell phones on a military base the day before an electronics preservation order was issued).
I don't know what we do about this power imbalance and selective prosecution.
Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
The real embarrassment is how little effort there's been to limit/reform the pardon system since then. Pardons have valid uses, but it's wild that a single person can unilaterally pardon donators, family members, former presidents, etc, without needing so much as a simple majority confirmation vote in the House or Senate. The questionable pardons that we've seen over the last few years (and the Nixon pardon) are just…
Isn't that the whole point of all these pardon things? To reduce incentives to usurp power to avoid responsibility by providing less destructive for the political system ways to avoid responsibility.
They're a release valve for "the system fucked up and permitted an injustice".
Avoiding responsibility isn't the goal, and shouldn't be possible.
Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
The real embarrassment is how little effort there's been to limit/reform the pardon system since then. Pardons have valid uses, but it's wild that a single person can unilaterally pardon donators, family members, former presidents, etc, without needing so much as a simple majority confirmation vote in the House or Senate. The questionable pardons that we've seen over the last few years (and the Nixon pardon) are just…
Isn't that the whole point of all these pardon things? To reduce incentives to usurp power to avoid responsibility by providing less destructive for the political system ways to avoid responsibility.
Or concretely, would the Israeli wars end sooner if Netanyahu was pardoned of all crimes? Would Kim Jong Un consider giving up his position if he could be pardoned, or at least credibly believe that he could live a life in luxurious exile? I don’t know the answer to either of those questions, but I do think letting some people get away with crimes with witness immunity can make it much more difficult for criminals to organize as the optimum move is to defect before anyone else does. Which is why I think elite blackmail focuses on unforgivable deeds.
Re: Show HN: Pardonned.com – A searchable database of US Pardons
#90We should at least ban the "preemptive" pardon if not all pardons. Pardon means forgiveness for a specific convicted crime, not a means to grant blanket immunity.
So I have mixed feeling on this. I'm thinking of Carter fulfilling a campaign pledge to pardon draft dodgers. Whether you support that or not, he did what he said he was going to do and I'm sure only some of them had actually been charged in any way. I think that's a perfectly fine use for the pardon power. Some will point to the Hunter Biden pardon. So two things can be true at once here: it was absolutely political…
> Federal prosecutors have a ton of power. Conviction rates are 98-99%.
This always gets thrown around, but the fact is they should be that high. Prosecutors shouldn't bring cases unless they have evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and DOJ prosectors don't (normally) screw around.
When you see lower rates of conviction, as in the current ethically bankrupt administration, it's often malicious prosecution, aka "You'll beat the rap, but you won't beat the ride."