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Full Video: Matt Damon's Impression of Brett Kavanaugh Is Scarily, Hilariously Accurate

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Interesting Times9/30/2018 1:55:13 pm PDT

re: #110 Belafon

I know lots of people are. But the real question is: Considering the precedent set by Gerald Ford in pardoning Nixon before charges, why is the ACLU so eager to back it?

Well, here’s the explanation right from the horse’s mouth, as it were:

And yet, for nearly 100 years, the same Supreme Court has sanctioned a gaping loophole to this principle: the “dual-sovereign” exception. Under this doctrine, state and federal prosecutors may indeed prosecute a person for the same underlying crime, under the specious logic that different “sovereigns” make for different “offenses” under the text of the Double Jeopardy Clause. In effect, the Court has given state and federal governments the green light to do together what they cannot do alone.

Now that states cannot prosecute people for the same crime twice, and neither can the federal government, it makes no sense to allow them to do so in tandem.

They seem to be saying that, if someone is first tried and acquitted for a federal crime, they shouldn’t be subjected to state charges and vice versa. But if someone hasn’t been charged either federally or at the state level, would this ruling prevent both in the case of a federal pardon? They don’t say.