Opinion ID: 2310847
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Disciplinary Sanction As a Collateral Consequence of the Pardoned Offense

Text: There is a separate and independent ground for rejecting the Board's recommendation. As the case law demonstrates, a full presidential pardon insulates its recipient not only from punitive sanctions based on the pardoned offense, but also from any civil disabilities or collateral consequences flowing from the offense. Since any suspension or censure of Mr. Abrams would have to be seen as a collateral consequence of the pardoned offense, I believe that this court is without authority to impose such a sanction. I find support for this view in the Supreme Court's decision in Boyd v. United States, supra . In that case a government witness in a murder trial named Martin Byrd had previously been convicted of larceny and thus had forfeited his capacity to testify. In an effort to restore his testimonial capacity, the United States Attorney asked President Benjamin Harrison to pardon Byrd, who had already served his sentence for larceny. President Harrison agreed and granted Byrd a full and unconditional pardon. Byrd then testified in the murder trial as the government's principal witness, and the defendants were convicted and sentenced to death. In rejecting their argument that the pardon had no restorative effect on Byrd's capacity to testify, the Court said: This pardon removed all objections to the competency of Martin Byrd as a witness. The recital in it that the district attorney requested the pardon in order to restore Byrd's competency as a witness in a murder trial ... did not alter the fact that the pardon was, by its terms, full and unconditional. The disability to testify being a consequence, according to the principles of the common law, of the judgment of conviction, the pardon obliterated that effect. The competency as a witness of the person so pardoned was, therefore, completely restored. 142 U.S. at 453-454, 12 S.Ct. at 294 (citations omitted). [14] Although the testimonial incapacity of convicted felons has been generally abolished, [15] the reasoning of Boyd is still applicable to the case at bar. At common law, the rationale behind witness disqualification was that convicted felons were inherently untrustworthy and thus could not be relied upon to give accurate or truthful testimony. Walter M. Grant, et al., Special Project, The Collateral Consequences of a Criminal Conviction, 23 VAND.L.REV. 929, 1037-1038 (1970). Despite this perception, the Court in Boyd held that a pardon restored a felon's testimonial capacityeven though in reality the offender was no more trustworthy after receiving the pardon than before. Likewise, in this case, I do not view Mr. Abrams' pardon as mitigating his ill-advised decision to deceive Congress. I conclude only that his full and unconditional pardon protects him from any kind of official disciplinary action or any governmentally imposed civil disability. Further support for this conclusion is found in Ex parte Garland, in which the Supreme Court flatly rejected the notion that Congress had authority to place any restrictions on the effect of a presidential pardon. [16] The congressional restriction in Garland was a law requiring all attorneys wishing to practice in the federal courts to take a loyalty oathregardless of whether a particular attorney had been pardoned for aiding the Confederacy. The Court held that such a restriction interfered with the virtually unlimited power of the President to grant pardons. 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) at 380. In so holding, the majority necessarily rejected Justice Miller's dissenting argument that Garland's pardon relieved him from all the punishment which the law inflicted for his offence, but from nothing more. Id. at 396. [17] Instead, the majority held precisely the opposite: that a pardoned offender is immune from any type of punitive or disciplinary measure based on the offense for which the pardon was granted. Moreover, and of special significance here, Garland illustrates that restrictions on an attorney's ability to practice law are among the collateral consequences which a full presidential pardon prohibits. Finally, Mr. Abrams places considerable reliance on Bjerkan v. United States, 529 F.2d 125 (7th Cir.1975), for the proposition that any sanction affecting his right to practice law would be a civil disability resulting from his conviction. In Bjerkan an attorney had been convicted of refusing to report for induction into the military. While he was incarcerated and his habeas corpus appeal was pending, he received a full and unconditional pardon from the President. The issue before the court was whether the pardon eliminated all collateral consequences of conviction and thus mooted the appeal. In holding that the pardon had indeed mooted the appeal, the Seventh Circuit interpreted an earlier Supreme Court decision, Carafas v. LaVallee, 391 U.S. 234, 88 S.Ct. 1556, 20 L.Ed.2d 554 (1968), which discussed the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction: The collateral consequences noted in Carafas were of a substantial nature, consisting of a deprivation of a person's basic rights, the right to work in certain professions, the right to vote, and the right to serve on a jury. Clearly, then, although the pardon will not render the petitioner innocent, if it restores all his basic civil rights, both state and federal, it will do away with the collateral consequences of his conviction. Bjerkan, supra, 529 F.2d at 126-127 (emphasis added). Indeed, the Supreme Court in Carafas, a case not involving a pardon, specifically noted that occupational disabilities resulting from a criminal conviction were collateral consequences of that conviction and thus did not moot a habeas corpus proceeding even though the petitioner's prison term had expired. 391 U.S. at 237, 88 S.Ct. at 1559. Following this precedent, the court in Bjerkan concluded: [A]ny deprivation of a person's basic civil rights, including the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, and the right to work in certain professions ... on account of a federal conviction would constitute a punishment. If the conviction were pardoned, as it was here, such attempted punishment would constitute a restriction on the legitimate, constitutional power of the President to pardon an offense against the United States and would be void as circumscribing and nullifying that power. 529 F.2d at 128 (citation and footnote omitted). The court in Bjerkan also emphasized that, although a pardon cannot erase the basic fact of conviction [or] wipe away the social stigma that attaches to it, courts are powerless to impose any form of disciplinary sanction against a pardoned offender. Id. at 126-127. [18] In so ruling, the court cited Knote v. United States, supra note 7, and Armstrong v. United States, supra note 11, cases decided by the Supreme Court in the aftermath of Ex parte Garland. Given the long line of precedents going back to Garland, I think the Bjerkan court was entirely correct in concluding that a full presidential pardon foreclosed any civil disability that could be deemed a collateral consequence of the pardoned offense. Since any sanction imposed on Mr. Abrams in this case would be just such a consequence, the court cannot impose it.