Opinion ID: 4563965
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: A Pardon Only Discharges Punishment

Text: That the restitution was solely and entirely an assessment of Cohen’s owed back taxes bears emphasizing because a pardon can only discharge a defendant’s punishment. See, e.g., Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224, 232 (1993) (“[T]he granting of a pardon is in no sense an overturning of a judgment of conviction by some other tribunal; it is [a]n executive action that mitigates or sets aside punishment for a crime.”) (emphasis in original) (internal quotation marks and alteration); United States v. Wilson, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 150, 160 (1833) (“A pardon is an act of grace, proceeding from the power intrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual, on whom it is bestowed, from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed.”). This limitation on the power of a pardon is well understood both in case law and legal literature. In United States v. Noonan, 906 F.2d 952 (3d Cir. 1990), for example, 2 we held that a presidential pardon “does not create any factual fiction that Noonan’s conviction had not occurred to justify expunction of his criminal court record. Poena tolli potest, culpa perennis erit (The punishment can be removed, but the crime remains).” Id. at 960 (internal quotation marks omitted). Our question is therefore whether Cohen’s restitution order constituted punishment such that it was discharged as a result of the gubernatorial pardon. In my view, the answer to that question is no.