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University of Chicago Law Review

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2331

Abstract

In 1977, a company convicted of conspiring with the mob asked President Jimmy Carter for a pardon. Government officials speculated that the President could grant the request, but ultimately the President decided that the company did not deserve clemency. Nearly fifty years later, President Donald Trump pardoned a company and commuted the sentence of another. People are again wondering whether the pardon power covers companies, but no one can offer evidence either way.

History shows that the pardon power covers companies. Before the Founding, the King would often pardon corporations. Both the City of London and the Massachusetts Bay Company were pardoned before the Founders were even born. The Pardon Clause and many of its state analogues were drafted against that backdrop.

That the President can pardon companies might feel surprising or even unsettling. But the prerogative fits comfortably into the nation’s separation of powers. Congress can make pardoning corporations less attractive by refusing to appropriate refunds for pardoned fines or replacing crimes with civil infractions.

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