Ex Parte Garland (1866)

In Ex Parte Garland (1866) 71 U.S. 333, the U.S. Supreme Court explained that a pardon blots out of existence the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offence. (Id. at 380.) Garland was an Arkansas attorney admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Courtprior to the civil war. (Id. at 336.) Following the war, Congress passed an act requiring any person seeking to practice before a court of the United States to take an oath affirming that he neither took up arms against the United States nor aided the Confederacy. (Id. at 334-35.) Because Garland represented Arkansas in the Confederate Congress, he could not take the oath. (Id. at 336.) Garland received a presidential pardon in 1865 for offenses he committed by taking part in the rebellion, presented the pardon to the court, and requested that he be admitted to practice without having to take the oath. (Id. at 336-37.) The court agreed with Garland's assertion that the act was unconstitutional, concluding the act was of the nature of bills of pains and penalties and thus subject to the constitutional inhibition against the passage of bills of attainder. (Id. at 377.) The court also determined the act violated the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws, as it imposed a punishment for some of the acts specified which were not punishable at the time they were committed, and for other of the acts it added a new punishment to that before prescribed. (Id. at 377.) After finding the act unconstitutional, the court stated its conclusion was strengthened by a consideration of the effect of the pardon produced by the petitioner. (Id. at 380.) The court explained that a pardon reaches both the punishment prescribed for the offence and the guilt of the offender, releasing the offender from punishment, blotting out of existence the guilt and rendering the offender as innocent as if he had never committed the offence. (Id.at 380.) When granted after conviction, the pardon removes the penalties and disabilities, and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity. (Id. at 380-81.) The court acknowledged, however, that a pardon would not restore offices forfeited, or property or interests vested in others in consequence of the conviction and judgment. (Id. at 381, 18 L.Ed. 366.) In the end, due to the pardon, the oath could not be exacted, even if that act were not subject to any other objection than the one thus stated. (Id.) Justice Field, stressed that a pardon, expressly restoring to an individual his civil and political rights, removes the disabilities that accompany a conviction. Justice Field wrote that the effect of the pardon is "to relieve the petitioner from all penalties and disabilities attached to the offense" and said that "to exclude him, by reason of that offense, from continuing in the enjoyment of a previously acquired right, is to enforce a punishment for that offense notwithstanding the pardon." The Supreme Court articulated that "a pardon reaches both the punishment prescribed for the offence and the guilt of the offender; and when the pardon is full, it releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offence." (71 U.S. at 380.) (Modern case law has dismissed the blotting out language from Garland as dictum and rejected Garland's expansive view of the power to pardon.)