Pardon

Governmental forgiveness of an offence; authorized remission of a punishment of crime; the executive act by which a convict may be released from penalties. The distinction between pardon, amnesty, and reprieve seems to be that pardon permanently discharges the individual designated from all or some specified penal consequences of his crime, but does not affect the legal character of the offence committed; while amnesty (q. v.) obliterates the offence, declares that government will not consider the thing done punishable, and hence operates in favor of all persons involved in it, whether intended and specified or not; and reprieve (q. v.) only temporarily suspends execution of subject to its consequences in time to come. " General pardon " is sometimes used in the sense of amnesty. Pardons may be granted upon conditions; hence they are called conditional or absolute, according as conditions to be observed by the offender are imposed, as that he shall leave the jurisdiction, that he shaU. make certain restitution, &c., or are not. In one of the decisions, the doctrine of conditional pardon is apparently placed upon the ground that pardon is in the nature of a deed requii'ing acceptance by the offender; that unless there is acceptance the pardon is inoperative. But this view requires reconsideration. There is no more necessity or propriety in considering acceptance by the prisoner necessary to the validity of a pardon, than in demanding his acceptance to constitute the sentence of punishment valid. The sentence of the court is the command of one branch of the government that a specified punishment be infiicted; and this should be carried into effect whether the prisoner consents or not. The pardon is the command of another branch of the government, authorized to interfere in the matter, remitting the sentence, dissolving its obligations, and discharging the administrative officer of all duty under it. This command.should be obeyed whether the prisoner assents or not. It does not seem to be admissible that a sheriff could justify inflicting the penalty of death on a pardoned convict, on the ground that the latter declined to accept the pardon; yet such would be the consequence of requiring assent to give the pardon validity. If, indeed, conditions are affixed, these are inoperative without assent; and if that is withheld, the pardon fails; but this is not because consent to the pardon was necessary, but because the conditions on which it was predicated never came into existence. The power of the president, under the constitution, to " grant reprieves and pa^ dons," includes conditional as well as absolute pardons. Exp. Wells, 18 How. 307, A general power 309. conferred upon,, tue governor, by the constitution, to grant reprieves and pardons, involves the power to all, or of a designated part only, of the penal consequencea of the crime.

People V. Potter, 1 Edm. 235; 1 Park. Cr. 47.

Pardon is the forgiveness of an offence granted by the executive, sometimes before, but usually after, conviction, to one who is certainly guilty. It is not noticed by the court, unless in some way pleaded by the person pardoned. Amnesty is the abolition or oblivion of the offence, granted by the legislative power, before trial, generally to whole classes who, it is supposed, may be guilty. State v. Blalock, PhiU.

L. 242.

The word pardon includes the idea of release; and a pardon by the governor of one convicted of conspiracy, even after sentence, will operate a release of all fines imposed for the offence, though these fines were due, not to the commonwealth, but to the county.

Cope v. Commonwealth, 28 Pa. St. 297.

The crown, in exercise of its prerogative of mercy, may pardon after conviction either of treason or of felony. But such pardon may not be given in anticipation of a conviction, and so as to be pleaded in defence to a prosecution. The pardon relates of course only to the particular conviction for which it is given.

Bioum

Pardon is the remitting or forgiving of an offence committed against the Ising, and is either ex gratia regis, or by course of law. Pardon ex gratia regis is that which the king affords by virtue of his prerogative. Pardon by course of law is that which the law in equity affords for a light offence; as casual homicide, when one killeth a man, having no such intention. Jacob, PARDONEE; PARDONER. Pardonee would be a proper designation for a recipient of a pardon; an offender to whom clemency had been extended. But there is no use of the term pardoner in the correlative sense, as the pardon is always granted by the crown, president, governor, &c. In the days when the popes issued indulgences, persons who carried the indulgences about and sold them to any who would buy them were styled pardoners.