It Is Possible and Necessary to Nullify Trump’s Corrupt Pardons (Including Secret Ones)

NEIL H. BUCHANAN

UF Levin College of Law professor Neil H. Buchanan argues that it is not only constitutional but necessary to review and nullify corrupt presidential pardons, including many of those granted by former President Trump. Professor Buchanan debunks the misconception that the presidential pardon power is “unlimited” as journalists have assumed, based on the language and context of the Pardon Clause and that of a seminal Supreme Court case interpreting it.

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Commonwealth v. Chalue

Docket: SJC-12457

Opinion Date: February 23, 2021

Judge: Lowy

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed Defendant's convictions three counts of murder in the first degree and concluded that Defendant was not entitled to relief under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, 33E, holding that there was no reversible error in the proceedings below. Specifically, the Supreme Judicial Court held (1) the trial judge erred by giving a charge in accordance with Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 364 Mass. 87 (1973), and Commonwealth v. Tuey, 8 Cush. 1, 2-3, to an individual juror after the jury had been polled, but the error was not prejudicial; (2) some the trial judge's rulings admitting prior bad acts evidence were in error, but the errors were not prejudicial; (3) the judge did not abuse his discretion in admitting coventurer statements; (4) certain remarks made by the prosecutor in opening and closing arguments were in error, but the error was not prejudicial; (5) the trial judge did not err by denying Defendant's motion to suppress; and (6) this Court declines to exercise its authority under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 278, 33E to order a new trial or direct the entry of verdicts of a lesser degree of guilt.

Commonwealth v. Caliz

Docket: SJC-12932

Opinion Date: February 23, 2021

Judge: Lowy

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the order of the superior court denying Defendant's motion for credit for time he served on a drug conviction that was vacated after the scandal at the State Laboratory Institute in Amherst at the campus of the University of Massachusetts was revealed, holding that Defendant was not entitled to mandatory credit in this case. In 2018, the Supreme Judicial Court ordered the vacated and dismissal with prejudice of thousands of drug convictions that relied on substances tested at the Amherst lab during certain periods of Sonja Farak's employment as a chemist at the lab. That same year, Defendant filed a motion for jail credit in his 2017 criminal case. The judge denied the motion, concluding that Defendant was not entitled to credit because government misconduct at a drug laboratory was not equally compelling to actual innocence. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding that, under the circumstances of this case, Defendant was not owed credit toward his conviction.