Are Trump’s Pardons a Blessing in Disguise?

The title of this post is the title of my piece in Lawfare arguing that, in response to President Trump’s reckless pardoning,  Congress should reroute many of pardon’s routine functions into the federal courts. The piece is reprinted below: Are Trump’s Pardons a Blessing in Disguise? As President Trump’s irregular and self-serving pardons roll out, incoming President Biden has been urged to repair or replace the process for advising the president on the use of this extraordinary constitutional power. It makes sense that critics have directed their ire and reform energies toward the mechanics of the pardon process, particularly since President…

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“Trump’s Theater of Pardoning”

The piece reprinted below is the first part of Bernadette Meyler’s contribution to a Symposium published by the Stanford Law Review on her book Theaters of Pardoning. It is as cogent a guide to understanding President Trump’s pardoning practices, and how they differ from those of his predecessors, as anything else we have seen. If, as Prof. Meyler argues, the message sent by Trump’s pardons is “the rejection of law,” it would be ironic (though entirely welcome) if they prompted Congress to reroute into the legal system much of the business heretofore committed exclusively to presidential pardoning, notably relief from the…

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Sex offense registries in Europe and around the world

We are pleased to publish new research by Stephen Schulhofer about the treatment of sex offense registration in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the EU. The research, presented here with an introduction by Alessandro Corda, comes from material prepared for inclusion in an upcoming draft of the Model Penal Code: Sexual Assault and Related Offenses (full citation and disclaimer below). Introduction: An Important Look at Foreign Policy and Practices Regarding Sex-Offense Collateral Consequences By Alessandro Corda, Lecturer in Law, Queen’s University Belfast School of Law The American Law Institute’s ongoing project aimed at reforming the Model Penal Code…

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Updated: “Who Must Pay to Regain the Vote? A 50-State Survey”

We are pleased to publish an update of our 50-state report on how unpaid court debt blocks restoration of voting rights lost as a result of a felony conviction: Who Must Pay to Regain the Vote? A 50-State Survey This report examines the extent to which state reenfranchisement laws consider payment of legal financial obligations (LFOs), including fines, fees, and restitution, in determining whether and when to restore voting rights to people disenfranchised due to a felony conviction. (Our national survey discusses and ranks each state’s general approach to loss and restoration of voting rights based on conviction.) We first…

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Marijuana expungement accelerates across the country

In November’s election, four more states legalized marijuana at the ballot box: Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota. The measures in Arizona and Montana included provisions for expunging the record of convictions for certain marijuana arrests or convictions. During this year’s presidential campaign, President-elect Joseph R. Biden called for decriminalizing marijuana use and automatically expunging all marijuana use convictions. As legalization continues to advance, the expungement of criminal records has finally attained a prominent role in marijuana reform, a development we documented in March. Laws to facilitate marijuana expungement and other forms of record relief, such as sealing and…

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