Does accepting a pardon have any bearing on trying that person for the same crime in a sovereign jurisdiction? In the United States, accepting a pardon is an admission to the crime. In Burdick_v._United_States, the majority opinion stated that a pardon "carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it." The United States has dual sovereignty. Each state and the federal government makes and prosecutes its own laws. A federal pardon does not grant immunity to state laws, and vice versa. A person pardoned in one jurisdiction can still be prosecuted for the same crime (e.g. tax evasion) in another jurisdiction. Could the acceptance of the pardon then have any bearing on the case in the other jurisdiction? Can the admission of guilt be used in the new case? Can it be used as "reasonable cause" for various actions? Does the defendant lose their right to refuse to testify in the new case?
Could the acceptance of the pardon then have any bearing on the case in the other jurisdiction? Possibly, but not much. There is very, very little case law on this point since: (1) pardons are rare (especially federal ones), (2) people who are pardoned generally do so because everyone in the criminal justice process in the prior case agrees that the person is reformed and they are usually correct, (3) the statute of limitations has often run on a new prosecution, and (4) many cases where these issues arise, are probably not appealed (either because the neither parties attempts to, or because a defendant is acquitted and there is no appeal), but an appeal is necessary to give rise to binding precedents. Can the admission of guilt be used in the new case? The criminal collateral estoppel effects of a pardon flow from the adjudication on the merits which is vacated. Also, comity between sovereigns and public policy mitigate such a rule. The pardon power would not be very interesting if it routinely resulted in a new prosecution that was conducted on a summary basis via a preclusion doctrine such as collateral estoppel. In many cases, the statute of limitations will have run on the original crime or there will be no parallel state law crime, but this is not always the case. Also, I would disagree with the statement that a pardon always implies an admission of guilt to the crime for which a pardon was granted, even though that statement is often used rhetorically. For example, one important use of the pardon power is to commute the sentence of someone who asserts that they are factually innocent but have been convicted of a crime, potentially in a manner that is not subject to further judicial review, and treating that as an admission of guilt doesn't make sense. As the Wikipedia entry on Burdick notes in the pertinent part: Legal scholars have questioned whether that portion of Burdick [ed. about admission of guilt] is meaningful or merely dicta. President Ford made reference to the Burdick decision in his post-pardon written statement furnished to the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives on October 17, 1974. However, said reference related only to the portion of Burdick that supported the proposition that the Constitution does not limit the pardon power to cases of convicted offenders or even indicted offenders. I would read this as dicta, as this portion of the holding was not necessary for the court to reach its conclusion and the fact pattern in Burdick was a typical fact pattern where guilt was not disputed. It didn't raise the concerns present when a pardon is requested based upon a claim of innocence, and granted following a conviction. Instead, the holding of Burdick was that there was no pardon because the pardon was rejected (in a manner very similar to a common law disclaimer of a gift), so its holding didn't need to reach the effect of a pardon that is accepted to resolve the case. Can it be used as &quot;reasonable cause&quot; for various actions? This is a bit too vague to know what you are getting at. I suppose that a pardon could constitute reasonable cause for some things favorable to a defendant who is pardoned (e.g., potentially in a motion seeking to reopen a termination of parental rights entered on the basis of the conviction). I suppose it could also be used in a manner potentially unfavorable to a defendant (e.g. showing a pattern of past conduct that demonstrates modus operandi in connection with a prosecution for a new crime). I don't think it could be used as grounds to deny an occupational or business license for bad character. Still, without more clear context it is harder to know what you are really looking for in this regard and I'm not confident that my examples address that. Does the defendant lose their right to refuse to testify in the new case? I haven't reviewed the case law, but my intuition is that if it has never been waived before, it wouldn't be waived by the pardon, but that if it was waived in a previous proceeding resulting in a conviction that was then pardoned, that the prior sworn testimony might be admissible evidence in the new action since it is not hearsay and isn't itself evidence of a prior conviction. The context of the prior testimony might have to be concealed from the jury. As noted by @Putvi, the defendant could not claim risk of conviction for the federal crime as a ground for invoking the 5th Amendment if a pardon is accepted (something that is implied in Burdick), but if there was an overlapping state law crime, risk of conviction for the state crime could constitute a grounds upon which to invoke the 5th Amendment. Burdick does stand for the proposition that a pardon not solicited by the defendant, that is rejected, cannot provide a basis for removing the 5th Amendment protection with respect to a risk of conviction for federal crime. I would also be inclined to think that matters disclosed in an application for a pardon might be admissible evidence as a non-hearsay statement of a party-opponent, if the statement was stripped of the pardon application context (which would be unduly prejudicial since it would imply a prior conviction which otherwise wouldn't be admissible).
Under U.S. law, double jeopardy prevents you from being charged with the same charge twice, and also from being charged with any offense which is a lesser included offense of the charged offense, or a charge so substantially similar that for constitutional purposes it amounts to the same crime. Basically, the test is whether a prior acquittal would be inconsistent with a new criminal charge. For example, even though there is an additional element of the crime of murdering a postal officer to the crime of murdering someone on federal property, double jeopardy would probably bar a retrial of a murder on federal property case simply because the victim happened to be a postal worker and that element wasn't charged in the original indictment. This is because the acquittal of the first murder charge would almost always imply a jury determination that a murder didn't take place which would be inconsistent with a murder of a postal worker charge. On the other hand, a trial on a murder charge would probably not bar, for example, a trial on a burglary charge (which at common law involved trespassing with an intent to commit a crime), even if the burglary charge arose from the same conduct. This is because an acquittal on a murder charge isn't necessarily inconsistent with the existence of a trespass, or with the intent to commit some crime other than the murder for which the defendant was acquitted. But the exact way that the line gets draw is tricky and while what I have described is a good general summary of the cases interpreting the double jeopardy clause, it isn't a perfect one. This issue has been litigated many, many tines over the years, so there are a lot of cases that are squarely on point addressing specific fact patterns in precedents that are binding case law that are not always a perfect fit to the general principles. In these circumstances, the binding case law is going to control, at least until a court with appellate authority over the court whose case established the precedent in question decided to overrule a prior precedent from the lower court, or in the case of U.S. Supreme Court precedents, until the U.S. Supreme Court revisits one of its own prior precedents as wrong decided or wrongly interpreted, which happens now and then, although it is a rare event.
The decision will be made by whichever country arrests him first (although a minority of countries allow for the trial of people who break their criminal laws in absentia). Needless to say, if nobody manages to arrest him ever, he will not face any criminal consequences except the issuance of an arrest warrant possibly accompanied by a pre-existing conviction in absentia if arrested in countries that allow for such a proceeding. Normally, in these circumstances, either country would have jurisdiction under its own laws to prosecute and punish the criminal, and many extradition treaties would not require the extradition of someone who committed a crime punished domestically in the state in whose custody the criminal is as part of the same course of events. Many countries will not extradite someone if they could face the death penalty in the receiving country. But, sometimes law enforcement in a country with a less serious penalty will intentionally defer to law enforcement in a country with a more serious penalty that is simultaneously trying to arrest him. Ordinarily, law enforcement is not authorized to use deadly force to arrest someone who is simultaneously being arrested by law enforcement from another country against either the arrestee or the law enforcement from the other country. Indeed, using deadly force against another country's law enforcement officers who are carrying out a lawful arrest in their own country would ordinarily be considered an act of war. U.S. double jeopardy provisions of the constitution do not prohibit a second prosecution of an offender in these circumstances because of a first prosecution by another sovereign, but many prosecutors in many countries would decline to prosecute someone a second time for the offense that they have already been convicted of in exercise of their discretion, and many judges would consider time served in another country for the same offense as a factor in setting their own sentence.
In the United States, prohibition against double jeopardy is a constitutional protection. As long as one was actually at jeopardy for an offence by a particular sovereign, that sovereign may not subsequently prosecute the accused for the same wrong. In other jurisdictions, such as the U.K., it has a less strict form, even though generally, special pleas of autrefois acquit would be available. It is also not the case that after an apparent &quot;confession&quot; in public that there is &quot;no doubt&quot; about a person's guilt. No evidence is &quot;certain&quot; in law without being tested in court. Also, you propose: you were tried for murder and acquitted - then you go out and publicly admit that they were wrong, you did actually murder that person This does not put the acquittal into question. The prosecution failed to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. This means at law that one is deemed to be not guilty. Your scenario does not show that the trier of fact was &quot;wrong&quot; about the prosecution failing to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. This is not an avenue by which the prosecution can challenge an acquittal. If a properly instructed trier of fact finds that that the prosecution did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, this conclusion is unassailable. You ask &quot;where is the justice?&quot; The justice of a system is assessed by its application across the totality of cases. Given that a system of prosecuting and judging that is run through humans will inevitably produce errors, the law has developed to promote a measure of &quot;justice&quot; across the entirety of the cases that are disposed of by the court rather than to futilely attempt to ensure the &quot;correct&quot; result in every particular case. The rule against double jeopardy has arisen out of this systemic concern for justice. It does not purport to secure the &quot;correct&quot; result in every case.
The general answer is "yes." Who ever said that only one set of laws applied? Jurisdiction isn't a matter of "one country's laws matter here, let's find out which one it is." All jurisdiction means is that your laws apply to the conduct, not that no one else's can as well. Broadly, there are a few sources of jurisdiction that are generally considered legitimate (to at least some degree) in international law: Territoriality: You have jurisdiction over actions performed in your territory. You also have jurisdiction over crimes where just one part of the crime happens in your jurisdiction (e.g. standing in country A and shooting someone in country B), or even if it just has a significant effect in your territory. Nationality: You have jurisdiction over crimes committed by your citizens anywhere in the world, regardless of whether or not they were breaking the law of wherever they were. Passive personality: You have jurisdiction over crimes committed against your citizens anywhere in the world. Protective: You have jurisdiction over crimes directly harming core state interests, like counterfeiting your passports or sabotaging your warship. Universal: A handful of crimes (like piracy or genocide) are so serious that every country in the world can exercise jurisdiction. If you catch a pirate, you can punish them. These are accepted to different degrees. Passive personality and protective jurisdiction tend to be iffier; territorial jurisdiction is unquestioned (although if it's just based on effects in your territory, it becomes a bit iffier as well). But any of them can be a basis for jurisdiction. If multiple countries have jurisdiction, whoever actually has the offender decides who will try them (jurisdiction to make an arrest is limited to the country in which the arrest is made). So: If you're located in a country, you have to comply with their laws, and they can regulate just about whatever they want, including what you're doing to foreign computers. The foreign country can also generally regulate what you're doing, because part of what you're doing is happening on their territory. Even if both you and the computer are in a foreign country, you may have to answer to the courts of your country of citizenship. Depending on what exactly you're doing, the protective principle may come into play. For instance, if you hack into a computer on a foreign military base, the foreign country could prosecute you for endangering their security. If you're coordinating a genocide, universality applies and anyone can prosecute you. If you hack the computer of a foreigner, passive personality may apply, although this tends to be controversial.
Can the prosecutor and/or the judge be sued for dereliction of duty, and for non-uniform application of the law? No. Judges and prosecutors have absolute immunity from civil liability for their actions in the course of their duties in connection with the court process. Prosecutors have effectively absolute discretion in their charging decisions and in their decisions to reduce the charges sought against a defendant (prior to jeopardy attaching when a jury is sworn in). Can the outcome of a bench trial be appealed on grounds that the judge did not inform the defendant of his rights Yes. or that his rights were taken away by unwarranted modification of the charges? No. Incidentally, there is no federal constitutional right to a jury trial in a case where six months or less of incarceration is sought as a penalty, and there is no federal constitutional right to counsel unless incarceration is a possible penalty. The Utah State Constitution distinguishes between criminal matters and non-criminal matters in several respects mostly found in the state's bill of Rights (Article I of the State Constitution) in Sections 8, 10, 12, 13, and 19. But, it is fundamentally the right of the state through its prosecutors to decide what charges to press against someone, and they are well within their rights to change their minds. Often, this will be in your favor because reducing an offense to a civil infraction rather than a misdemeanor will have far fewer collateral consequences related to having a criminal record.
Is there a way to accept civil liability without admitting a criminal violation? Are you allowed to tell the police, “I accept full responsibility for the accident, but I don’t wish to discuss what happened”? You can allow a default judgment as to liability to enter in a civil case (and then possibly even have a contested adversarial hearing on damages), or you can reach a settlement dismissing the case with prejudice in exchange for payment of a certain settlement without admission of liability. Indeed, this is what actually happens in about 90%+ of car accident cases that aren't resolved at trial or in a motion for summary judgment (something that is quite rare in a car accident case). Likewise, you can plea &quot;no contest&quot; or even being convicted following a trial of a traffic violation in connection with an accident, without the outcome of the traffic case having a binding effect on the outcome of a civil case, even though this seems contrary to the logic of how results in one case determine issues in other cases (called &quot;collateral estoppel&quot;). Basically, this rule has been enacted in most U.S. jurisdictions (usually by statute but in some rare cases by judicial decision), in order to prevent local traffic trial cases from turning into expensive high stakes battles that are really about liability for huge economic damages, in a traffic court process designed to efficiently deal with disputes in the tens to thousands of dollars at stake, rather than the tens of thousands to millions of dollars that are at stake in a personal injury case where there have been serious injuries. However, while the outcome and plea in a traffic case in not binding in a civil lawsuit involving a related accident, any testimony given under oath in one case can be used in the other case in almost all circumstances.
First, there is no definitive correct answer to this question because it has never happened over the course of 45 Presidencies. But, it certainly could come up. If the President purports to pardon himself for a federal crime and is then prosecuted, the judicial branch would have to decide if the pardon was valid. But, I would disagree with the answer from @user6726, and would instead take the position that the concept of a pardon inherently implies that one is pardoning someone else. This is why President Nixon, when he resigned, had Vice President Ford, when he became President upon Nixon's resignation, pardon him, rather than pardoning himself. President Bush, in connection with the Iran-Contra scandal also took the position that he did not have the power to pardon himself. Basically, a pardon is an event that is ordinary conceived of as involving two persons, a giver of the pardon and a recipient. Also, recognizing the power of a President to pardon himself or herself would be to give him or her impunity to disregard the law not just in areas where he or she has Presidential immunity, but in anything that he has ever done in his life. (Also, the President can only pardon federal crimes, not state crimes.) There is, of course, an academic literature on the subject (which none of the answers in the PoliticsSE refer to and which the other answer here does not refer to). The two leading law review articles addressing the question are: Brian C. Kalt, &quot;Pardon Me: The Constitutional Case against Presidential Self-Pardons&quot; 106 Yale L.J. 779 (1996-1997) (obviously adopting my position). An expanded version of this article became a chapter in a book called &quot;Constitutional Cliffhangers: A Legal Guide For Presidents and Their Enemies&quot; by the same author. Robert Nida and Rebecca L. Spiro, &quot;The President as His Own Judge and Jury: A Legal Analysis of the Presidential Self-Pardon Power&quot; 52 Okla. L. Rev. 197 (1999) (closed access). It opens with the following language (in part): [C]an the President pardon himself for criminal acts committed while or before holding office? Article II of the Constitution prohibits a President from using the pardon power to overturn an impeachment.5 The Framers of the Constitution placed only this limitation on the ability of the President to exercise his pardon power,6 and the only sanction for the abuse of the pardon power is the removal of the President through impeachment.7 The Constitution is silent, however, as to whether the President may grant himself a pardon from prosecution and, if so, when such a pardon may be issued.8 In the over 20,000 instances that Presidents have used this exclusive power,9 no President has used this power to pardon himself.10 One viewpoint is that a presidential self-pardon is inherently inconsistent with &quot;natural law,&quot; which proclaims that one may not judge oneself.11 This article is cited in Comparative Executive Clemency by Andrew Novak who calls it an unresolved question but believes many legal scholars believe that it is possible. Leading Constitutional law scholar Adrian Vermeule analyzes but does not resolve the issue in his book &quot;The Constitution of Risk&quot;. A 2017 Vox review from 15 legal experts is here. Their views are mixed and nuanced. A 2017 op-ed in the Washington Post from a former member of Congress who was involved in the impeachment proceedings for President Nixon says &quot;no.&quot; Another review of expert opinion in 2017 can be found here. This also noted a dispute within the realm of academic legal opinion. There has also been debate over whether treason is treated differently for pardon power purposes than other federal crimes, but the precedent of the pardons issued after the U.S. Civil War pretty definitively resolved this question in favor of the power of the President to pardon treason, so the nature of the federal offense wouldn't matter. Note also that the pardon power is not limited to cases where criminal charges have been brought or convictions have been obtained. This issue is irrelevant to a President's self-pardon power.