Latest Case: Michigan v. Brown (Constitutional Law)

What Trump’s Pardons Reveal about Him and His Misunderstanding of Executive Clemency

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College—describes how President Trump’s pardons reveal his “superficial and distorted” understanding of American values. Professor Sarat points out that for someone who claims to value the clemency power, President Trump has granted clemency fewer times than any President since William McKinley, who served from 1897 to 1901, and when Trump has granted clemency, he has used it to reward people whose crimes show their contempt for the rule of law.

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Michigan v. Brown

Docket: 158663

Opinion Date: December 3, 2020

Judge: Per Curiam

Areas of Law: Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Legal Ethics

At issue before the Michigan Supreme Court in this case was whether defendant, Troy Antonio Brown, was entitled to a new trial because the detective who conducted defendant’s police interview testified falsely against him. The Court concluded: (1) the detective’s testimony against defendant was false; (2) the prosecutor failed to correct the false testimony; and (3) there was a reasonable likelihood that the uncorrected false testimony affected the judgment of the jury. Therefore, judgment of the Court of Appeals was reversed, defendant’s conviction was vacated, and the matter remanded to the trial court for a new trial.