Civil asset forfeiture should not be considered constitutional, and some day a test case will make it to the SCOTUS. As for this case though... the pardon does not make Ulbritch innocent! On the contrary, accepting the pardon implies guilt. So the pardon need not and might not extend to forfeitures. Though it's also possible that the presidential pardon could extend to the forfeitures, but I suspect that's a constitutional grey area.
Cases have made it to the Supreme Court --- recently! --- and it held up just fine. This is another message board fixation. I'm sure it's abused all over the place. It wasn't in this case.
What part of this makes you thing CAF is on shaky constitutional ground? This is a CAF case with reach-y fact patterns for the government and they won it handily. We didn't even get close to the question of whether CAF is itself constitutional; the court simply presumed it.
This was about the timing of a hearing about forfeiture, not about whether forfeiture is ok. Though I've not read this case yet, but now that I'm aware of it I'm keen to read it. I'll comment again later.
“A pardon is an expression of the president's forgiveness and ordinarily is granted in recognition of the applicant's acceptance of responsibility for the crime and established good conduct for a significant period of time after conviction or completion of sentence. It does not signify innocence.”
Pardons are forgiveness. They don’t roll back the clock, although the Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that acceptance of a pardon is not an assumption of guilt.
Was acceptance of a pardon an "assumption" by the court? Is it not "admission* of guilt", which I believe itself was never the case as this was based on a judge's aside that people didn't accept pardons because it was *percieved* as "an admission of guilt", i.e. the "percieved" part was not actually articulated in court but rather the judge was completing a thought before it was fully articulated.
What I find interesting is that the 5th amendment no longer applies after a pardon. The pardoned can no longer claim that protection for the crime he was convicted of.
My apologies I made a mistake. The Burdick SCOTUS case from 1915 said “carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it”
In 2021, an appeals court opined that: “not every acceptance of a pardon constitutes a confession of guilt.”
I thought the 2021 case was a Supreme Court case, and I was incorrect. I think in the public eye the pardon is viewed differently based on however the story is told.
That would arguably create some of the worst perverse incentives, as far as financial crimes go.
Any two-bit governor could team up with some criminal, and make enough money to be set up for life against a pardon. Even worse if it's a president, as they could likely get off scot-free.
Trump could literally scam everyone and everyone, step down, receive a pardon from the VP, and happy days.
That’s exactly what it’s doing. As long as you misbehave in Washington DC or commit a crime not chargeable in a state or too complex to prosecute, you’re good.
For example, you could defraud suckers into buying a pump and dump memecoin. Elon has repeatedly demonstrated that nobody will prosecute, and POTUS is above the law for as long as he decides to stay in office.
