What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[Tonitrus]

The US President got the power because state governors had the power (because Royal governors had had that power because the king had had that power).  The idea was that it was a safeguard against injustices that the legal system could not address.

I'm not sure when the end-of-term bulk pardons became popular.  I'll look into it.

Yeah. My understanding was that it was basically the prerogative of mercy which in the UK system was the monarch's being adapted (always think the American President's constitutional role is basically not a million miles from an early 19th century British monarch). I think other constitutional systems often have some form of mercy or clemency.

In the UK now they're very, very rare (and like most prerogative powers, exercised by the monarch on advice from ministers). In part this is because there's a Criminal Cases Review Commission which exists to examine (and potentially overturn) possible miscarriages of justice, which used to be a big reason for mercy (I suspect lack of death penalty also makes it less of an important route).

The last pardon I can think of was posthumous for Alan Turing (I think during Gordon Brown's minsitry). That wasn't uncontroversial, because the argument was that if Turing was getting pardoned all gay men convicted under those crimes should also be pardoned - the Home Office response to that was that those crimes around "unnatural acts" were broad and covered things that are still criminal and they didn't have records of who was, say, convicted of consenting gay sex over the age of consent that are now morally acceptable v things that are still crimes. So it ended up just being a symbolic gesture for one particularly famous gay (although why they couldn't also pardon Sir John Gielgud for cottaging in Chelsea is beyond me).

Mercy seems to be the reasoning as well (per Alexander Hamilton from Federalist No. 74):

He is also to be authorized to grant "reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMPEACHMENT." Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed. The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel. As the sense of responsibility is always strongest, in proportion as it is undivided, it may be inferred that a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law, and least apt to yield to considerations which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance. The reflection that the fate of a fellow-creature depended on his sole fiat, would naturally inspire scrupulousness and caution; the dread of being accused of weakness or connivance, would beget equal circumspection, though of a different kind. On the other hand, as men generally derive confidence from their numbers, they might often encourage each other in an act of obduracy, and might be less sensible to the apprehension of suspicion or censure for an injudicious or affected clemency. On these accounts, one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of government, than a body of men.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting - feel like we could do with even more of those points of gratuitous mercy now.

[Solmyr]

Biden should just pardon everyone and watch the prison-industrial complex collapse.

[crazy canuck]

Was Clinton the first one to pardon a family member?  I have a vague memory of Carter not doing that for his brother, but could be wrong.

Charles Kushner, father of Jared, was pardoned by end-of-term Trump for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions, and witness tampering (all of which charges he pled guilty to).  He's now to become the ambassador to France.

So just Clinton, Trump, and Biden.

Thanks