Actually, a person can be pardoned from any crimes they may have commited before convicted of the crimes. See: Richard Nixon.
Pardons go a long way. Were you aware of this one:
CITIZENS OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES, 1865
The 17th President, Andrew Johnson, took office the day that Lincoln died from gunshot wounds. Johnson had a mixed reputation, having stayed in the Senate as his home state of Tennessee seceded in 1861; he was popular in the North, but considered a traitor by those in the South. After becoming President in 1865, he moved forward on reconstruction. While Congress was not in session, he pardoned Southerners in the Confederate States on the condition that they would take an oath of loyalty to the Union. But Johnson, who grew up poor and had a dislike of the rich and privileged, wouldn't grant blanket amnesty to several classes of Southerners, requiring leaders and wealthy men to obtain their own special Presidential pardons.
Or this one...
VIETNAM DRAFT DODGERS, 1977
His Oval Office chair was barely warm when President Jimmy Carter fulfilled a controversial campaign promise on his first day in the White House by issuing a pardon to those who avoided serving in the Vietnam war by fleeing the U.S. or not registering. President Gerald Ford had earlier introduced a conditional amnesty, but Carter, hoping to heal the war's wounds, made no conditions. He did, however, exclude many groups of individuals from the pardon: deserters were not eligible, nor were soldiers who had received less-than-honorable discharges. Also not included were the civilians who had protested the war. |
