Hello! I was scrolling along until I saw an article about a Pardon in Texas. In the comment section people talked about how pardons are even still a thing and one User pointed out that they are totally easy to abuse. Like why can’t a governor hire a hitman to kill his political Opponents and then just pardon him? Would this be possible? Can a governor or let’s say the president just straight up do that?
Thank you all in advance!
People raise good points about the federal system.
Let’s say a governor did hire a hitman and murder is a state crime. All of a sudden we now have a conspiracy and ideally the federal government would take jurisdiction of what is now a federal crime. At that point, the governor would need to bribe or threaten the president to pardon these federal crimes…
Similarly, if it was the president orchestrating some sort of conspiracy, he might be able to delay or pardon federal offences, but as we are seeing with the 2016/2020 election crimes of Trump, a patchwork of state and federal cases are made all being handled (or delayed) via different powers.
Federalism is sort of good in that power is relatively diffuse. But it breaks down when 50% of courts and other officials just decide their friends can do as they will.