Ian’s Legal Fact of the Week 9/3/19: Can You Refuse a Presidential Pardon?

In 1830 James Porter and George Wilson were convicted on several counts of stealing mail and jeopardizing the life of a mail carrier. They were convicted, and Porter was executed soon after. Wilson’s influential friends secured a pardon from President Andrew Jackson, but Wilson refused it. The Supreme Court took up the question of whether a presidential pardon could be rejected, ultimately ruling that it could in US. v. Wilson, 32 U.S. 150 (1833). Wilson therefore won his argument, and was accordingly hanged.

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