In the News
Presidential pardons have been headline news these past days and weeks. Joe Biden pardoned his entire family, including his son who was convicted of several felonies. Biden also pardoned anyone participating in the January 6 investigation committee in the House of Representatives. And he commuted the sentences of more than a thousand non-violent drug offenders. Not to be outdone, Donald Trump pardoned more than 1,600 people who have been convicted or charged in the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capital Building. Over the last eight years, both Biden and Trump have issued pardons for individuals who committed violent crimes, broke campaign laws, and engaged in financial fraud.
Definitions and General Information
Let’s define some terms before we go on. In the United States, pardons are part of our system of checks and balances. They are powers granted to the executive branch of government in order to counter the power of the judicial branch. While the judicial branch has the power to issue convictions and sentences, the executive branch has the power to overturn convictions and/or decrease the sentencing. A pardon is the overturning of a conviction. Pardons restore the full rights of citizenship: to vote, to hold office, and to bear arms. A commutation is the full or partial reduction of the sentence: reducing prison time or fines. Amnesty is the blanket pardon of a whole group of people who have been convicted, are charged, or may be charged for a particular offense.
Pardons are jurisdictionally confined. In other words, the president can only pardon cases handled by federal courts. Governors (or state boards of pardon) can only pardon cases handled by the courts of that respective state. The president’s power to issue federal pardons is found in the U.S. Constitution: “he shall have the power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” (Article 2, Section 2)
History
Only two presidents never exercised that particular power: William Henry Harrison and James Garfield. They both died within months of being elected. Every other president has issued pardons.
The first two pardons in U.S. history were issued by George Washington when he saved John Mitchell and Phillip Weigel from execution. There’s a story there that all started with the Whiskey Rebellion. When the federal government decided to tax whiskey stills in 1791, farmers in western Pennsylvania armed and organized themselves to keep tax collectors away. Standoffs and skirmishes went on for almost four years. Very few people were killed, but shots were fired here and there. When federal marshal John Neville shot and killed one of the rebels, an angry crowd of 600 gathered at his house and burned it to the ground. The federal government responded by marching 1300 troops into the area to restore peace.
Federal officials decided to prosecute those involved in burning Neville’s house. There were 150 suspects, but only ten were proven to be present that day. Of those, only two were convicted: Mitchell and Weigel. They were convicted of treason and sentenced to hang. Washington stayed their execution twice, and on November 2, 1795, he issued full pardons to both. He stated that both men were repentant of their behavior and that for the public good, the government should exercise “every degree of moderation and tenderness which the national justice, dignity, and safety may permit.”
Every president who lived more than six months after taking office issued pardons. Andrew Johnson issued a blanket pardon that gave amnesty to anyone who served in the confederate army and navy. This effected 7,000 men who had already been charged—and another one million who served the Confederacy. Jimmy Carter issued an amnesty that pardoned over 200,000 men who were jailed, convicted, or accused of evading draft laws during the Viet Nam War. His amnesty prevented another 300,000 men from being prosecuted.
The president with the most specific named pardons was Joe Biden, 8,064, mostly for non-violent drug offenders. But he also pardoned a deceased civil rights hero, an 80-year old woman wrongly convicted of killing her abusive husband, and public figures that Donald Trump promised to prosecute when he got inaugurated.
Public opinion goes up and down, but there is currently vigorous opposition and alarm at the pardons given by both Trump and Biden. The angst may not last. In U.S, history, there has always been frustration about presidential pardons—or the refusal to grant pardon.
Biblical Insights
People of faith are not only interested in the political and historical dimensions of pardon, but also in biblical, theological, and ethical insights into the subject.
In regard to the issue of pardon, a number of biblical themes are germane: forgiveness, jubilee, redemption, justification, mercy, and justice—for starters. So let’s start with justice—an issue that arises in the first chapters of Genesis. How to administer justice when Adam and Eve ate forbidden fruit, or when Cain killed Abel? Adam and Eve had their sentence commuted. Cain was given amnesty.
Injustice occurs whenever relationships get out of balance and harm is done to someone. In the Bible, injustices can be personal or systemic: how one individual mistreats another or how a whole nation or category of people is oppressed. The Ten Commandments address several forms of individual injustice: stealing, murder, adultery, and bearing false witness. Systemic injustices are the focus of numerous passages in the Bible, shedding light on the poor, widows and orphans, prisoners, the hungry, immigrants, war, intimidation by occupying soldiers, and rigging the system so real estate tycoons, politicians, and religious leaders accumulate nearly all society’s wealth. Injustice stems from such things as greed, lust, desire to dominate, hunger for violence, hate, grievance, bigotry, and hubris.
The purpose of justice is to redress the wounds, causes, and imbalances of injustice. The biblical words for justice in both Hebrew and Greek literally mean “to make right again.”
Justice highlighted in biblical narratives and laws might take one or more of six different forms:
- Punitive Justice: Inflicting startling pain on those who wound others
- Retributive Justice: Punishing an offender in proportion to the wounds inflicted
- Restitutive Justice: Repaying the victim for losses incurred
- Reformative Justice: A program to change the heart and mind of the offender
- Restorative Justice: Reestablishing a healthy relationship between offender and victim
- Protective Justice: Removing a person from the community who is likely to harm others
Punitive justice is stoning a woman to death who is caught in adultery. Retributive justice is “an eye for an eye.” Restitutive justice is giving your neighbor a new cow to compensate for the cow you accidently killed. Reformative justice is going to fellow church members to explain how they are doing wrong and inviting them to change. Restorative justice is the aim of forgiveness. Protective justice in the Bible often consists of various forms of exile, mutilation, or death. Life-sentences or long prison terms were not much of a thing.
Mercy is a key element in the execution of justice. To provide no justice when harm is done is to be unmerciful to the one who has suffered damage. On the other hand, a thoughtful extension of mercy to the offender can be instrumental in making the future better for the whole community.
In the Bible, prisons were a key feature of ancient justice. But many people in prison were there for offending someone in power. Joseph, Jeremiah, Daniel, Jesus, Paul, and John were among those imprisoned. The prison systems in Bible times were as unfair and unequal as those of today. Then and now, commutations and pardons have long been a feature of the justice system.
Does the Bible call for prisons to be entirely emptied? It seems so. In Jesus’ very first sermon, he proclaims “release to the captives” in Luke 4:18. There appear to be no loopholes in that statement. Perhaps the justice system in his day was so ineffective, inconsistent, and corrupt that it was time to close it all down and start over—just as it was important to bring down the temple, stone by stone, and start over in reforming religion. When Jesus looked at the criminal justice system and the prisons of his own day, his statements on releasing all captives perhaps indicates that prisons were totally ineffective in protecting people from harm. They were just one more form of evil in people’s lives.
It is hard to think, however, that Jesus would not approve of some sort of program to protect folks from violence and injustice. He thought of himself as a shepherd. Providing a system of protection is a primary task of every shepherd. Jesus was proactive in reducing crime—appealing to love and justice. But he wasn’t oblivious to the dangers that still face people in this world.
Theology of Pardon
Theologians are more focused on how God pardons people than how a government official does. All of us are God’s children. And it is a theological assumption that all God’s children have a tendency to harm each other—as well as our own selves. We are also prone to harm God’s creation, God’s sensibilities, and God’s reputation. When we have used our human powers to do harm, justice is required to restore balance and rightness—and perhaps even serve as a deterrent.
Unlike human governments, God does not use fines or imprisonment. A primary form of God’s punishment—in this life—is to simply withdraw and let us suffer the natural consequences of our actions. Credible theologians do NOT view disease, injury, mental illness, pandemics, or natural disasters as forms of divine punishment. But thoughtful Christians often speak of spiritual distress—sometimes in the extreme—as a strategic punishment from God. Many theologians also view hell and purgatory as forms of punishment in the next life.
The theology of atonement, even though it evokes vigorous arguments among theologians over what and how it works, basically states that people are pardoned by God through an intervention from Jesus, involving Jesus’ suffering on a cross. I won’t go into the contentious debates over the various contradictory theories of atonement. But most all Christians generally believe that people are pardoned through something worked out between Jesus and God. A fundamental tenet of Christianity is pardon. Those who receive and experience this new life of being forgiven are said to be justified. A fundamental teaching of the Apostle Paul is that we are justified through faith. One more topic for theologians to argue about.
Roman Catholics have a more thoughtful ritual for pardon than do Protestants. It is expressed through one of Catholicism’s seven sacraments: the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This is commonly called confession, or penance. Whenever we do harm to someone else, we also do harm to our relationship to God, as God is full of love for everyone. Even the noblest forms of restorative or reformative justice demand some sort of action to set matters right so we can move on. The Sacrament of Reconciliation leads us through several steps toward this restoration. It seeks a genuine change of heart and circumstance so that offense will not be repeated, so that further injustice will be avoided. The sacrament calls for the following:
- Confession of sin—total honesty, both with oneself and with a representative of the community—regarding one’s role and responsibility in a particular injustice
- Penance—a miracle through which the Holy Spirit leads us to be repulsed by our actions, to do them no more, and to make restitution to those who have been harmed
- Reconciliation—a ritual and heartfelt blessing from a representative of the community in which we are restored to full fellowship with God and with fellow members of the church
Pardon and Christian Ethics
Christian Ethics is where we bring together 1) biblical scholarship, 2) Christian theology and liturgy, and 3) contemporary news headlines—in order to figure out if there is a right way for Christians to respond to what is happening around us. What is the “Christian” take on all these pardons in the news?
(Note: Do NOT confuse Christian theology with the Religious Right. The Religious Right is a cabal of politicians and preachers who brilliantly manipulate the opinions and beliefs of perhaps half the people who call themselves Christians in the United States. The Religious Right has insinuated itself into the Republican Party. While other malignant forces have embedded themselves in the Democratic Party, Christians have been particularly naïve and vulnerable to Republican politicians. Despite the gullibility of many, the Republican Party has lost between 10 and 12 million evangelical Christians in the past decade who realize that the Religious Right is neither Christlike nor conservative. This despite the party’s overall numerical growth. Sadly, many Christians have also stopped going to church because of the Religious Right. As for the Democrats, between the 1960s and 70s, the Democratic party was often given a free platform in many mainline denominations. But that symbiotic relationship is virtually impotent today. In any case, it is essential that Christians protect themselves from all partisan meddling in their biblical interpretations and efforts to be ethical in their social and political endeavors. In case it isn’t clear—you may conclude that this particular pastor/writer is thoroughly disgusted with both political parties—and deeply convinced that political partisanship is the most idolatrous and violent threat facing our country today. Our ministry is IN the world, and so we must engage in dialogue on political topics. But Christians are expected to bring something very different to the table—not at all what partisans bring.)
First, some observations. Second, some questions.
Observations:
- The justice system in the United States is hypocritical. Lady Justice may be blind, but the system contorts itself in response to all sort of color, class, political power, revenge, money, chaos, and luck. Pardons are perhaps one of the most inconsistent elements of the justice system.
- The prison system, a lumbering giant within the justice system, is a breeding ground for recidivism. Prisons foster their own internal injustices and violence. Many in prison shouldn’t be there. And many who should be in prison have manipulated the justice system in order to avoid it. In other words, very little about our existing prisons makes any sense.
- People are being pardoned who have made no remorse and who have not reformed. People who owe restitution to others are given no accountability for their actions.
- Many pardons are long overdue. Throughout our history, many people have been convicted wrongfully. In cases where crimes were committed, many sentences were far too harsh for the infraction. If the executive pardon is a way to make justice more appropriate and honorable, there should be tens of thousands more commutations than we are seeing.
- Since the year 2000, we are seeing more and more pardons falling into the category of “executive abuse of power.” Presidents of both parties are using their power of pardon to give undeserved and unreasonable privileges to their cronies, families, and supporters. The result is a growing cynicism and disrespect of the presidency and our system of checks and balances. Pardons are not being used to check the power of the judiciary, they are being used to check the power of the opposite political party.
- In Christian ethics, we need to prepare two strategies: one for working within the current system, trying to make the best of a pessimistic situation, and a second for bringing about systemic reform, making deep and radical changes.
Ethical Questions:
- How do we follow the teachings of the prophet Micah (6:8) who calls for us to do justice? How do we “do justice” a little piece at a time, one person at a time, when we can’t change the system that is doing more harm than good? Which leads to the question: is the current system is doing more harm than good?
- Are we being ethical when we make judgments and attack politicians (regarding pardons or any other issue related to the justice system) without having done thorough and balanced research? Is it ethical to speak self-righteously when we are merely parroting positions of politicians, opinions on social media, and perspectives of politically influenced networks and newspapers?
- Are we willing to learn more about our local justice system: policing, prosecuting, defense counsel, judges, jails and prisons, ex-prisoner re-integration, appeal processes in our own county? On a national level, we can often do little more than add to the noise. But would our actions and voices actually matter if we gave more attention to county matters?
- If someone has been forgiven by God, does that mean that the government should also extend a pardon? If God forgives us, what is covered in that forgiveness? What is not covered?
- What is an effective and just way to practice deterrence in a society? Where have people been imaginative and creative, thinking outside the box, experimenting with new ways of protecting the general public? Who are the people in our communities who are most vulnerable to the greed, violence, lust, and hostility of others? How do we increase our mercy and protection of them, via the justice system?
- What justice is available to people who remain incarcerated because they have been pre-accused (by a judge) of crimes they may commit, due to something they have done in the past—or been charged with in the past?
- Who do we know who can tell us of their experiences with the justice system—or pardons? What would constitute a balanced list of people to interview?
Repertoire 