Would the pardon power really cover pardons that advance a criminal conspiracy?
The Constitution gives the power to pardon to the president alone, and yes, I understand that there have been cases decided that involve the pardon power in which the courts treat the president’s pardon power as plenary. But I would think that the mere fact that we have case law on the subject says that presidential pardons are still subject to some review by the courts. I would think that there would be at east two sets of considerations that common sense would require courts to consider if they were raised, and which would have to lead them, if the issues raised were found to have merit, to nullify a pardon. For one thing, the president, however plenary his power of deciding to whom and for what crimes to pardon, surely must cede to the courts the definition of what constitutes a pardon, because that must rest on the common law as it stood when the Founders used the word “pardon”, and the courts are the the institution that interprets the law for us. Just because the presdient calls
