zlacker

>>Ozarki+(OP)
Wasn’t he in jail for hiring a contract killer?

I’m all for the freeing him of his crimes when it comes to his crypto anarchic philosophy. But I find it hard to pardon someone for contract killing essentially. Also I’m not an apologist for the FBIs handling of this case either.

>>yuppie+01
No, that charge was dropped. IIRC, it was on shaky ground and they were just trying to throw the book at him.

>>hypeat+L1
The charge was dropped, but the court did hold a hearing on it when deciding on sentencing. They heard the evidence for and against and ruled by a preponderance of the evidence that he did in fact do it.

>>tzs+I3
Then why would they drop the charge if they thought the evidence pointed to the fact he did it.

>>UncleO+V3
Separate courts. He was indicted and tried for all the non-murder stuff in a New York federal court. He was indicted separately in a Maryland federal court on a murder-for-hire charge.

The New York court convicted him, and then considered the murder-for-hire allegations when determining his sentence. They found them true by a preponderance of the evidence and and that was a factor in his sentence to life without parole. He appealed, and the Second Circuit upheld the sentence.

The prosecutors in Maryland then dropped the murder-for-hire charge because there was no point. They said this would allow them to direct their resources to other other cases where justice had not yet been served.

>>tzs+g5
Ironically, he was only pardoned for drug related crimes, so he could still be charged with murder related ones if they were not dropped with prejudice (i didn't look)

This is all AFAIK, they haven't released the text broadly yet, but his lawyers/etc say he was pardoned for crimes related to drugs.

Even what people call a 'full and unconditional' pardon is usually targeted at something specific, not like "a pardon for anything you may have ever done, anywhere, anytime' which people seem to think it means sometimes.

It's more of a legal term of art to describe pardons that erase convictions, restore rights, etc.

Rather than clemency which, say, commutes your sentence but leaves your conviction intact.

>>DannyB+X9
Murder is usually state-level jurisdiction, and the President can only pardon federal jurisdiction.

>>mmooss+ee
Yes, i'm aware - there are federal murder statutes, but they are mostly about murder of federal police officers, hate crime murders, etc.

However, murder for hire is also federal crime - see 18 USC 1958 and the DOJ CRM on this: https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...

So depending on the pardon text and interpretation, he may or may not be chargeable with this statute still federally.

I agree this has zero effect on charging him at the state level, and most states do not have statute of limitations on these types of crimes (or they are very long)