A Pardon for Arpaio Would Put the Country in Uncharted Territory | Hacker News Reader

A Pardon for Arpaio Would Put the Country in Uncharted Territory

nytimes.com

16 pointsfmihaila12 comments

"Uncharted territory" as in "like every other time a convicted person has been pardoned"

The pardon of Arpaio (which can, by definition, only be for one conviction per pardon) is not dissimilar to any other executive pardon issued in the last ~230 years: there are good aspects, bad aspects, and neutral aspects.

"But the Arpaio case is different: The sheriff was convicted of violating constitutional rights, in defiance of a court order involving racial profiling."

That's the problem with the reproducible builds - the constitution source code does not compile into your binary.

"which can, by definition, only be for one conviction per pardon"

Not really. You don't even need to be convicted of anything to be pardoned. E.g. Richard Nixon.

What would you say are the good aspects?

Don't know right off

But for all the things he's done which we're pretty repulsive, what he was "caught" on reminds me of getting Al Capone in tax evasion...and not for murder, illegal liquor sales, etc

There are no good aspects here, this pardon is dispicable and undermines the rule of law and is directly an expression of racism from the POTUS. Arpaio was an awful sheriff, a bigot who abused his power and put innocent people on chain gangs in the AZ heat and made innocent people sleep in tents in the AZ heat and abused them in many many ways. He was my sheriff for many years, he defied court orders to stop violating people's 4th amendment rights because he was running around demanding hispanics prove their citizenship in place that is largely hispanic, in other words abusing actual natural born citizens due to his racist profiling, he belongs in jail. This isn't a country where it's OK for the Gestapo to demand we show our papers because we look like a Jew.

This fucktard of a president just endorsed this behavior, which means we're now going to see more of this. This is more flame on the fire of the clearly upcoming race war.

So, the problem with down voting this guy is you are creating an echo chamber. People will cease to say anything against the hive mind, and we all will intellectually suffer for it.

Just because the NYT (and I like them) seem to be losing their minds over Trump (or really increasing readership) doesn't mean we all have to go with them. Look, he's a buffoon, but it's very unlikely he is going to destroy the country. We have plenty of checks and balances to prevent such a thing.

Clinton's pardon list is pretty unsavory too. Like it or not, it's just one of the perks of the job.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controvers...

It's different for at least two reasons:

1. Arpaio did not ask for a pardon.

Almost every other President has only pardoned people who asked for a pardon.

2. It's for a misdemeanor conviction that resulted in only a short jail sentence (six months), which I believe he has not even started to serve.

Almost every other pardon is for a felony with a long sentence, which already has had significant time served.

>Almost every other President has only pardoned people who asked for a pardon

Nope. Try again. Famously with Clinton & Ford.

It is always fun to watch sumo wrestlers pretend they are ballerinas.

The constitution is clear: if POTUS is not under impeachment, POTUS can pardon.

The arbitrary line is impeachment. We love arbitrary lines. Here's one: tool into the head which is out of vagina => murder and the doc goes to jail, in some states probably gets a lethal injection. Head has not breached vagina while a tool shoved into it => protected activity with claps from NYT.

Yep... Careful though the HN Goolag doesnt look kindly on diversity of opinion.

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