Quote:
Originally Posted by Trolly McTrollson
OK, dumb legal questions:
A guilty plea leads to a conviction, correct?
Does he have to be found guilty to receive a pardon, or can Trump pre-emptovely pardon him?
If he’s pardoned, is he still technically convicted of a crime?
I’m basically not sure what this means for my Predictit bets.
Yes, guilty pleas result in convictions.
Yes, preemptive pardons are possible. This was addressed in
Murphy v Ford 1975 when the pardon of Nixon was challenged.
However, yes, pardoned people are still convicted of a crime. Removal of record of a conviction is known as expungement and this is not granted by a pardon, nor is it within the power of the President. However, it's possible that a preemptive pardon could result in slam-dunk charges never being laid, because there's no point.