2020 US Presidential election

[Loki]

At some point during this presidency I went digging into it, and the legal experts I had found were saying that even though the pardon can be issued, if the person hasn't been charged then there are no double-jeopardy protections in place. Further, there was a supreme court case that stated that acceptance of a pardon is an admission of guilt, and suggestions that it could be used as evidence in a hypothetical trial. The conclusion was that even though crimes without charges have been pardoned before, that only works if prosecutors let it, not because it necessarily has to.

I'm not a legal expert though, and I don't know if that's the standard opinion, so I could be off.

Not sure about that argument, but the fact remains these pardons have been issued in the past and none of the pardoned people have ever been charged. I'd take DOJ guidance on this subject.

[Wraith]

Not sure about that argument, but the fact remains these pardons have been issued in the past and none of the pardoned people have ever been charged. I'd take DOJ guidance on this subject.

From what I remember, the basis for the argument came from the Nixon pardon, and the Carter administration getting pressure to take Nixon to court because the pardon didn't carry any force. Pardons without charges are very rare, and I had understood that's because nobody wants to deal with exactly this - that the pardon would carry all the legal force of a polite request, so it relies on continued DoJ cooperation.

I'm also vaguely remembering something about a supreme court case that said overly-broad pardons are invalid, but that may have been in regards to pardoning future crimes.

Anyways, I'm out of my wheelhouse, and this isn't really important anyways. Can we just call this an open question?