I can't see any way in which a "Pardon Power" can ever result in anything except miscarriage of justice. If you think there needs to be an escape hatch to fix injustices then you have a bigger problem.
I can. Let’s say for example that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was used to prosecute you for downloading JSTOR documents which you had already access to. And you are facing the cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, personal asset forfeiture. Now, would a pardon from the highest executive office be a miscarriage when the prosecution should never have happened in the first place? I…
President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'
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Re: President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'
#32I can't see any way in which a "Pardon Power" can ever result in anything except miscarriage of justice. If you think there needs to be an escape hatch to fix injustices then you have a bigger problem.
I agree with the example given in the sibling comment, and this is why the framers believed there needed to be a final “safety valve” outside the courts. Legal systems are imperfect, and sometimes a pardon is the only practical way to remedy an egregious error. Another example where pardons might be useful is when laws are changed after sentencing. If the new law does not provide for retroactive adjustments, a presid…
Re: President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can. Let’s say for example that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was used to prosecute you for downloading JSTOR documents which you had already access to. And you are facing the cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, personal asset forfeiture. Now, would a pardon from the highest executive office be a miscarriage when the prosecution should never have happened in the first place? I…
In your opinion, which administration have you known to have issued a pardon that was equally justifiable in the eyes of members of political parties from both sides of the isle?
Any time a President can use their pardon power to free any actually innocent person from a genuinely unjust act, they should do so.
Problem is, we've got Presidents who'd rather abuse it arbitrarily in unjust and fraudulent ways. Thus, "pardon power" probably just shouldn't exist at all I suppose, or at the very least it should have some sort of "guardrails" / oversight attached somehow...
Re: President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can as easily use pardons to tip the scales to a more corrupt society. If you assume, hypothetically, that the justice system is operating as it should, a pardon means giving one person the right to ignore the laws of the country for a select few acquaintances. If one has to tolerate this blatant avenue for favoritism, I’d rather see the Supreme Court or judges themselves invested with this power, rather than the…
An argument against vesting pardons to the SC is that they are supposed to simply apply the law, not make quick corrections based on value judgments. If separation of powers is a concern, remember that checks and balances also exist. If I may suggest anything, perhaps replacing the president should be made easier, either by making the people be able to recall the president, or by recalling the congressmen, and the co…
You may indeed suggest it. Now, how do we make it reality so that "We The People" can get some of our power back in this supposedly "Free" nation?
Re: President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'
#35I can't see any way in which a "Pardon Power" can ever result in anything except miscarriage of justice. If you think there needs to be an escape hatch to fix injustices then you have a bigger problem.
Re: President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with the example given in the sibling comment, and this is why the framers believed there needed to be a final “safety valve” outside the courts. Legal systems are imperfect, and sometimes a pardon is the only practical way to remedy an egregious error. Another example where pardons might be useful is when laws are changed after sentencing. If the new law does not provide for retroactive adjustments, a presid…
Too bad the safety valve is corrupt and dishonest.
Re: President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'
#37The biggest problem with diesel engines is that they tend to last nearly forever by virtue of their design (tolerating high compression ratios). I see a lot of ancient big trucks on the road today that are completely legal in Texas but would probably get you sent straight to jail in Europe. The owners of these vehicles are oftentimes also diesel mechanics to some degree and can make their machine run much longer than…
I don't really understand how the rest of your comment provides evidence for this claim. Not wanting to address it with policy, sure, I can see you seem to feel that way, but it's not clear why you're convinced it can't be addressed.
Re: President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'
#38Doing so automatically exempts you from CA SMOG because SMOG is a county by county law. If your address is out of state, you have no county smog obligation.
I went to get my vehicle smogged and was told I didn't need to.
Re: President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sarcasm, presumably, but unless they're caught rolling coal[1] again, they can't be re-arrested as they've been pardoned for the previous cases. It's a tacky crime, hardly the most serious, but that makes a presidential pardon seem especially absurd here. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal
It is a serious crime. Diesel fumes are very damaging to the lungs and heart. Imagine a pregnant woman being exposed to them. There is no logical way to make light of it. From your link: > the practice can increase nitrogen oxide emissions as much as 310 times, non-methane hydrocarbons 1,400 times, and carbon monoxide 120 times
Diesel cars used to be really reliable. And then, in a moment, they got that ecology thing. They leaped from 500k+ kilometers until the first major expenses to just 100k+. From a consumer point of view, you were just buying the next version of the same diesel car. But in reality you get nothing even close. If that's not a deception, then I don't know what a deception is.
Many modern diesel cars require very expensive replacement parts after just 100k kilometers. I mean really expensive. I had Fiat Tipo and the particle filter would cost me €5000+. Which is more or less half the car market price. After trying "cheaper" approaches that mounted to the same €5k over the 1.5 years, without resolving the problem, I decided to sell the car.
On the other hand, this is just an ecology thing. Your car can perfectly live without it. You can turn it off for a fraction of that cost. After a year of trying different approaches, my mechanic even offered to do it for free. The temptation is very strong. You didn't plan financially for this kind of repair costs when you were buying a diesel car. You need your car to keep going for another 2-3 years at the very least to make the purchase feasible.
Of course, you can call it a customer mistake. After all, the manufacturer didn't provide a warranty beyond 100k kilometers. But nobody tells you that the car takes €5000+ in repairs per 100k kilometers.
I'm all hands for the ecology. Don't get me wrong. I didn't accept the offer to remove the insides of the particle filter. However, if I didn't have the money to buy a new car, I would certainly do that. With my conscience being clear, because I'm 100% sure that the manufacturer is the one who is responsible for this. And the governments who allowed this manufacturer to behave like that. I'm OK with paying the "ecology tax", but it should be clearly stated in the papers, and not shadily emerge after 100k kilometers.
Re: President pardons 9 for Clean Air violations for 'fixing their car'
#40The biggest problem with diesel engines is that they tend to last nearly forever by virtue of their design (tolerating high compression ratios). I see a lot of ancient big trucks on the road today that are completely legal in Texas but would probably get you sent straight to jail in Europe. The owners of these vehicles are oftentimes also diesel mechanics to some degree and can make their machine run much longer than…
As you note, Europe did this quite successfully with successively-tighter diesel emissions standards for new vehicles being introduced every few years since 1992. Other countries - China, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Indonesia, Australia, etc - have either adopted the Euro standards wholesale or tweaked them slightly for their local market conditions.
That was backed up by measures such as testing individual vehicles for continued compliance at their annual inspections, banning commercial vehicles that fail to meet recent standards from using public roads, charging private vehicles which fail to meet recent standards when they enter dense urban areas, and scrappage schemes to mop up the remaining non-compliant vehicles.
It took a while to produce results, but eventually resulted in pretty dramatic improvements in air quality - and we now have good evidence of improved health outcomes, particularly in children with asthma or other respiratory conditions.
Perhaps too late for the US to start now given the switch to EVs, but it ought to be kept in mind for the next time a "we can't possibly do anything about this" issue comes up.