CONSTITUTIONAL LAW--EXECUTIVE PARDONS IN THE COURTS

Authors

Abstract

An interesting conflict between American political theories and early English precedents arose in a recent case involving the jurisdiction of a court of equity to set aside a pardon procured through fraud and deception upon the pardoning power. At the common law any suppression of the truth or suggestion of falsehood in procuring a pardon was held to vitiate it. HAWKINS, B. 2, ch. 37, § 8; 4 BLACK. COMM. 398, 400. The statute of 27 EDW. III, c. 2, provided that where a pardon was granted at any man's suggestion, the fact of such suggestion and the name of the person making it were to be embodied in the pardon; and the justices before whom such pardon was set up might disregard it if they found these suggestions to be untrue. An early American case, In re Edymoin, 8 How. Pr. (N. Y.) 478 (1853), held, without citation of authority or notice of the English precedents, that fraud in the inducement could not be shown in habeas corpus proceedings. But in the same year another case, State v. McIntire, 46 N. C. 1, 59 Am. Dec. 566 (annotated), passed upon the same point and came to a contrary conclusion. Here also the court failed to cite authorities, but it said, inter alia, "The pardoning power conferred by our constitution is derived from the laws of England," and evidently relied upon the English rule. The next case, State v. Leak, 5 Ind. 359 (1854), was expressly based upon the McIntire case and the English precedents. In Comm. v. Halloway, 44 Pa. 210 (1863), the court came to a similar conclusion, but solely upon the common law exclusive of the statute of 27 EDW. Dominick v. Bowdoin, 44 Ga. 357 (1871), came to a like conclusion upon the authority of the Halloway and McIntire cases. Rosson v. State, 23 Tex. App. 287 (1887), reached a like decision.

Recommended Citation

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW--EXECUTIVE PARDONS IN THE COURTS, 21 Mich. L. Rev. 683 (1923).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol21/iss6/5