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The Persistence of Pardons and the End of Attainder

Moral Explanations, Relational Facts, and Institutional Forms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2018

Matthew Norton
Matthew Norton*
Affiliation:
University of Oregon [[email protected]]
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Abstract

Pardons are a well-known form of lawful but extrajudicial power over criminal classifications. They are still in regular use in rule of law regimes around the world. Attainder is the less well-known power to condemn via a legislative rather than a judicial act. Despite their structural similarities, pardon and attainder have exhibited divergent trajectories. One is ubiquitous, the other extinct. Focusing on the divergent trajectories of pardon and attainder during the framing of the U.S. Constitution and thereafter, the article advances an explanation for these phenomena based on asymmetries in the relational facts linking pardon and attainder to other thick moral constructs that constituted the moral system of the framers and their successors. Those facts mattered in their own right, but it was in light of the matrix of founding era moral interpretations that the framers grasped and institutionalized their significance.

Résumé

Les pardons sont une forme bien connue de pouvoir légal de type extrajudiciaire exercé sur les classifications criminelles. Ils sont encore régulièrement utilisés dans les régimes d’état de droit à travers le monde. En droit anglais et en Common law, l’attainder correspond au pouvoir, moins connu, de condamner par un acte législatif plutôt que par un acte judiciaire. Malgré leurs similitudes structurelles, le pardon et l’attainder ont connu des trajectoires divergentes. L’un est omniprésent, l’autre est éteint. En se concentrant sur les trajectoires divergentes du pardon et de l’attainder au cours de l’élaboration de constitution américaine et par la suite, l’article avance une explication basée sur des asymétries dans les faits relationnels liant le pardon et l’attainder à d’autres constructions morales “épaisses” (thick) qui constituaient le système moral des concepteurs de la constitution et de leurs successeurs. Si ces faits importent par eux-mêmes, c’est à la lumière de la matrice des interprétations morales de cette période fondatrice que les concepteurs en ont saisi puis institutionnalisé la signification.

Zusammenfassung

Begnadigungen stellen eine bewährte Form legaler, außergerichtlicher Machtausübung bezüglich krimineller Klassifizierungen dar. Sie werden weltweit regelmäßig von Rechtsstaaten genutzt. Im englischen Recht und im “common law” entspricht der “attainder” (Verlust der bürgerlichen Ehrenrechte) einer unbekannteren Form einer mehr gesetzgebenden als gerichtlichen Urteilsfindung dar. Trotz ihrer strukturellen Ähnlichkeit haben Begnadigung und “attainder” verschiedene Wege genommen. Die eine ist allgegenwärtig, die andere erloschen. Dieser unterschiedliche Werdegang während der Erarbeitung der amerikanischen Verfassung sowie danach basiert auf der asymmetrischen Verbindung zwischen Begnadigung und “attainder”, die auf jeweils unterschiedlich “dicke” Moralgebäude der Gründungsväter und ihrer Nachfolger zurückzuführen ist. Während diese Tatsache in sich allein schlüssig ist, darf nicht vergessen werden, dass die amerikanischen Gründungsväter die moralischen Interpretationsansätze aus dem Blickwinkel ihrer Zeit begriffen und institutionalisiert haben.

Keywords

Thick moral conceptsRelational factsSociology of lawSociology of moralityPardonsAttaindersConstruction morale épaisseFaits relationnelsSociologie de la loiSociologie de la moralePardonsAttaindersStarke moralische KonzepteRelationale FaktenSoziologie des RechtsSoziologie der MoralEntschuldigungenZuschauer
Type
On the Historical Sociology of Morality
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , April 2018 , pp. 91 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © A.E.S. 2018 

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