Thursday, 25 January 2007
Beshear Wants To Limit Pardons
« U.S. and Energy | Main | Quote of the Day »Beshear, in an attempt to make political hay from Fletcher's pardons came out today with an idiotic idea for limiting the Governor's pardon powers.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear called Thursday for the General Assembly to pass a constitutional amendment that would allow governors to issue pardons only to people who have been convicted of crimes.
Beshear, a Lexington attorney and former lieutenant governor, said Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a Republican, abused his pardon power in 2005 when he issued a blanket pardon of everyone ��� except himself ��� in a criminal investigation of his administration���s hiring practices.
���The power to pardon was never meant to allow a governor to hide criminal acts by his political friends from the public,��� he said.
It is obvious that this proposal is a "backlash" against the blanket pardons issued last year by the Governor. (I didn't hear calls for these types of proposals when Democrats (ie Patton) were pardoning their cronies for much more egregious offenses). And like most "backlash" legislation it is a horrible idea.
The first question we need to answer is should the Governor be able to pardon people? The answer is yes for one simple reason. It provides a balance to the judicial system by allowing the Governor to free an individual who was wrongly convicted of a crime Otherwise the judicial system would have the only say in a person's punishment whether it is wrong or right. There is no other way for the judicial system to review any case.
Knowing this, what difference does it make when a person is pardoned? By forcing the person to be convicted you are subjecting them to unimaginable court costs when they would have been pardoned anyway. Heck If a governor was going to pardon someone then I would rather they did it up front than later for no other reason than to save the taxpayers a bunch of otherwise wasted money. Let the voters decide if the Governor's decision was right or wrong instead of introducing stupid constitutional amendments.
