Court Opinion

ID: 9646210
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 12:52:53.238651+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:35.632256
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno:
In spite of what the Annotated Code of Maryland says, as quoted in the Majority Opinion, I still believe it is a deprivation of a man’s constitutional rights to introduce in evidence, when he is on trial for a wholly different crime, record of a prior conviction of another crime, when he has been pardoned by the sovereign power of the State of that crime and conviction.
In contemplation of law, a pardon “so far blots out the offense, that afterwards it cannot be imputed to him to prevent the assertion of his legal rights. It gives to him a new credit and capacity, and rehabilitates him to that extent in his former position” (Knote v. United States, 95 U.S. 149), and hence its effect “is to make the offender a new man.” (4 Blackstone Com. 402).
Thus, for the Commonwealth to inform the jury that the accused was once convicted of a heinous offense, when the record shows he was pardoned, is to make him an “old man” again, and cripple him in his trial on the current charge. He is made to drag chains from which the law has already emancipated him. He is *466made-to suffer a punishment which the law has already remitted. To pardon and yet to punish is a blatant contradiction. It is like a parent forgiving his child, while chastising him with a strap; or like absolving one’s debtor while ordering the sheriff to sell his home; or condoning a. neighbor’s transgressions while shooting his dog; or wiping a slate clean while immersing it in mire; or letting bygones be bygones while preparing an act of vindictive reprisal.
A pardon represents the most powerful exercise of sovereign power insofar as individuals are concerned. It achieves the magic of turning back time and making nonexistent what was once existent. It reconstructs the bridge of honor which was broken; it repairs the wall of credit which had been breached; it replaces over the house of one’s good name the roof of good repute which had tumbled.
The pardoning power of a sovereign is as much a part' of government as the prosecuting power. The wiping out of a criminal record by the Executive Department of the State, under its constitutional authority to do so, carries as much potency as the original writing of that record and, coming later, predominates and supersedes everything that went before.
In spite of what this Court said in Commonwealth v. Cannon, 386 Pa. 62, it is my belief that Cannon was improperly convicted and, therefore, is improperly imprisoned, and consequently entitled to relief through the issuance of the writ of habeas corpus.
I, therefore, dissent to the decision of this Court which denies the petitioner that writ.