Burdick v. United States

Burdick v. United States

Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 16, 1914
Decided January 25, 1915
Full case name George Burdick v. United States
Citations 236 U.S. 79 (more)
35 S. Ct. 267; 59 L. Ed. 476; 1915 U.S. LEXIS 1799
Court membership
Chief Justice
Edward D. White
Case opinions
Majority McKenna, joined by White, Holmes, Day, Hughes, Van Devanter, Lamar, Pitney
McReynolds took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915)[1], was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that:

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. It is the private though official act of the executive magistrate, delivered to the individual for whose benefit it is intended. A private deed, not communicated to him, whatever may be its character, whether a pardon or release, is totally unknown and cannot be acted on.

United States v. Wilson established that it is possible to reject a (conditional) pardon, even for a capital sentence. Burdick affirmed that the same principle extends to unconditional pardons.

Contents

Case history

A grand jury was investigating whether any Treasury Department employee was leaking information to the press. George Burdick, city editor of the New York Tribune, took the fifth and refused to reveal the source of his information. He was handed a pardon by president Woodrow Wilson but he refused to accept it or testify. He was fined $500 and jailed until he complied.

Current status

After Ford left the White House in 1977, intimates said that the former President privately justified his pardon of Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of the Burdick decision that stated a pardon indicated a presumption of guilt, and that acceptance of a pardon was tantamount to a confession of that guilt. (See Presidency of Gerald Ford#Pardon of Nixon)

The status of the Burdick decision is in question as a result of the decision of President Clinton to grant a full and unconditional pardon to Henry Ossian Flipper. Flipper, the first African-American graduate of the United States Military Academy, did not accept the pardon, as he had been dead for over 50 years.[2] In addition, the pardon was considered to be an act that cleared his good name.[3] It did not constitute an admission of guilt. Flipper's clemency application also noted the Supreme Court made it clear, in 1974, that the "requirement of consent was a legal fiction at best."[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ 236 U.S. 79 Full text of the opinion courtesy of Findlaw.com.
  2. ^ Henry O. Flipper, First African American Graduate of West Point
  3. ^ "Lieutenant Henry Ossian Flipper". United States Army Center of Military History. http://www.history.army.mil/html/topics/afam/flipper.html. 
  4. ^ Petition For Pardon For Second Lieutenant Henry Ossian Flipper. 10th Cavalry, United States Army: Brief In Support Of Petitioner’s Application For Pardon, reprinted in Bending Toward Justice: The Posthumous Pardon of Lieutenant Henry Ossian Flipper, Jackson, et al.., Indiana Law Journal, Vol. 74, no. 4 (74 Indiana L.J. 1251) (1999), citing Schick v. Reed, 419 U.S. 256 (1974)