cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/31454550
The president’s stated intention to pardon Tina Peters, jailed for tampering with election machines in 2020, has set off a legal fight over the extent of Mr. Trump’s pardon powers.
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Mr. Ticktin argued that Mr. Trump has the power to free Ms. Peters under an untested legal theory that the Constitution’s language allowing the president to pardon people for offenses “against the United States” applied not just to federal crimes but also to state-level charges.
“The President of the United States has the power to grant a pardon in any of the states of the United States,” Mr. Ticktin wrote in a letter to Mr. Trump last week that portrayed Ms. Peters as a political prisoner who could be a witness to investigations into the false claims that the election was stolen from Mr. Trump.
Legal scholars and Colorado officials were incredulous. They said the notion that the president could intervene in state courts clashed with the plain language of the Constitution, as well as its fundamental principles of federalism and states’ rights.
What is not clear to me is how it will get there…normally there is a case that is raised from state to federal court. But afaik a pardon is not a case, it’s just…a unilateral executive order of some kind (obviously ianal). If it were a federal conviction, obviously CO wouldn’t have any jurisdiction to refuse. But if this was a state matter, and there’s no “case” to escalate to SCOTUS, I’m not actually sure what happens next…maybe he tries sending in the national guard to enforce his order, and the state challenges it, and that goes all the way to SCOTUS?
A pardon isn’t a case until CO refuse to recognize it and they sue the state over it. Which they absolutely will do because it costs them literally nothing to drain down the national coffers.