Power, Pragmatism and Prisoner Abuse: Amnesty and Accountability in the United States

Legal Dilemmas in Releasing Indonesia’s Political Prisoners

“…There are two possible consequences of a clemency grant: first, where clemency cancels or reduces only punishment, without erasing the prisoner's guilt for the offence (which may or may not be accompanied by the prisoner's civil rights being restored); and second, where executive clemency completely vindicates by putting the prisoner back in the same position as if the crime had never been committed, by erasing both the punishment and the prisoner's conviction. 15 Recalling the two most familiar examples of executive clemency, all commutations maintain guilt. Moreover, with its plain English meaning, the word 'pardon' also implies the same: that the still-guilty defendant is extended leniency by the state as a gift, rather than a revocation of punishment due to innocence.…”