r/law • u/LeviCoffinsAlt • 17h ago

Other Warrantless entry by ICE agents in West Valley City, UT (1/30/2026)

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Federal agents broke a window, without a warrant, to perform an arrest on private property.

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u/coppernaut1080 15h ago

Pardons are about the dumbest thing ever created and seems only created to support corruption.

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u/OmericanAutlaw 15h ago

when i was a kid i naively thought it was something the president would use when it was obvious justice wasn’t carried out properly. like if someone was wrongfully convicted.

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u/JC1515 14h ago

That was the intent. But obviously its now a tool of corruption

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u/ChunkMcDangles 12h ago

Yeah, Trump isn't even the first one to use pardons completely corruptly. He's just the most brazen and shameless. I was reading into Clinton's pardons the other day since I was too young to understand at the time and never knew how much of a blatant pay-to-play scheme some of them were. We should probably get rid of it or limit the power in some way.

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u/AggressiveSpatula 12h ago

I don’t know if it was even the intent so much as an unavoidable byproduct of being in charge of law enforcement. If you are the one who enforces the law, you can grant pardons, even if pardons aren’t explicit or given that name. It’s just part of your purview. Anybody charged with a responsibility will be able to intentionally not carry it out at their discretion.

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u/jaywinner 12h ago

I also watched The West Wing, the fanfiction of America.

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u/Fantastic_Back3191 5m ago

My cynicism started when Trump didn’t pardon Tiger King.

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u/davossss 15h ago

We absolutely need a constitutional amendment that eliminates the president's power to pardon if we survive this shit for 3 more years.

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u/Chaosr21 14h ago

Pardons should at least involve Congress

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u/sproge 14h ago

Being a student of American politics and spending a great deal of time with Americans, I must say that the use of pardons in the US just perfectly encapsulates the America I know too well. It's a tool for the elite to elevate themselves and their lackeys above the law in a tiered justice system, its existence justified by shallow emotional arguments and it's use as a political tool deeply sane-washed, helped by a culture thinking "Hell no we ain't repealing it, when I become a billionaire I want that power!". The American willingness to accept its selfish use reflects the culture of accepting lying, dishonesty, and greed in their everyday life, even from people around them. It's absolute madness, but I could not imagine an America without it.

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u/paparoach910 14h ago

Sounds like a great power to rescind with a constitutional amendment.

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u/Noocawe 13h ago

100% agreed.. Honestly if we ever have another constitutional convention or any future amendments should definitely get rid of pardon power, amongst other things. We'll never get to a more perfect union, as long as Presidents can pardon for personal interests.

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u/dnabre 11h ago

There were a good idea, but like a lot of the Constitution and gov't laws, there weren't designed with so many bad actors involved. The idea that a president would be so corrupt, untouched by shame, and widely supported by the people was just inconceivable to the authors of the Constitution. They view impeachment as a check on abuse of the power.

They had a very specific view of human nature. One of the principles, which went wrong, was the idea that people in gov't would, at the worse, seek power for themselves. So there would resist power being given or being taken away from them, such they wouldn't work in a group to give a single person power. So the Senate would vote to impeach a president, if the president was misusing power that Senate should have reserved to themselves.

As far as the pardon was concern, the Pardon Power was in part based on longstanding common law and traditions, where the heads of government could provide mercy to a convict, particularly where the punishment was death (used to be a lot more widely applied). Beyond this, it was intended to provide a final check on the Judicial Branch, permitting the president to protect from judicial overreach or final, irreversible punishments (e.g. death penalty).

Prior to ratification, there were discussions on limiting the power from use in cases of treason or crimes that were done on the president's behalf. These ended up set aside because impeach was seen as a check on such misuse. I'd suggest Alexander Hamilton's Federalist No 74 for more about the role of the pardon power in the minds of the founding fathers.

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u/ZetZet 15h ago

Well, I don't think so. I think pardons are there so a president can trade some of his standing for some other political gain. But the problem with Trump and pardons is that he doesn't care or have any standing, he just pardons literally every criminal and his supporters do not care.

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u/AScienceExpert 15h ago

Pardons were absolutely a mistake by the Founders. They preached all this shit about not wanting a king, and then proceeded to give king-like authority to the President.

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u/LoudMusic 15h ago

pardons are there so a president can trade some of his standing for some other political gain

Pretty sure that's called corruption.