What is the Value of a Presidential (federal) Pardon?
First, if you were convicted of a federal or military offense you undoubtedly suffered from and may be still suffering from what are usually termed "disabilities," "civil disabilities," "legal disabilities," or less commonly, "disqualifications." That is because in addition to the sentence which is imposed upon a convicted criminal offender, numerous "civil disabilities" are also very often imposed -- perhaps always imposed.
A civil disability is the lack or absence of legal capacity to perform an act and the term is generally used to indicate an incapacity for the full enjoyment of ordinary legal rights. The term civil disability is used as equivalent to legal disability, both these expressions meaning disabilities or disqualifications created by positive law, as distinguished from physical disabilities. Disabilities may be either general or special. A disability isgeneral when it incapacitates a person for the performance of all legal acts of a general class, or giving to them their ordinary legal effect; it is special when it bars him from one specific act.
Disabilities, which have a serious adverse affect on an offender both during his confinement and after his release or discharge from probation or parole, include denial of such privileges as voting, holding public office, obtaining many jobs and occupational licenses, entering legally-enforceable agreements, maintaining family relationships, and obtaining insurance and pension benefits. For example, a very common and well-known form of civil disability resulting from a conviction of driving under the influence of alcohol is the revocation or suspension of one's privilege to drive a motor vehicle. Another commonly known legal disability is the one that forbids a person convicted of a felony from possessing a firearm under penalty of additional criminal liability.
The significance of a presidential pardon is that it removes or eliminates all disabilities that arise from the federal or military offense that is the subject of the pardon.
Secondly, as a result of an appropriations restriction of the U.S. Congress now imbodied in Public Law 109-Stat.468, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms ("ATF"), a division of the U.S. Department of Treasury, has been ordered to expend no public funds on what used to be called the Restoration of Disabilities Program. As a result, ATF cannot currently process applications of people convicted of federal felonies for restoration of the federal firearms privilege. At least for the moment then, this apparently leaves the presidential pardon process as the exclusive avenue for a person convicted of a federal felony offense to regain both state and federal firearm privileges that were lost because of the federal or military conviction. At least one California Court of Appeals has, in the Bradford case, expressly recognized the presidential pardon as eliminating certain state disabilities of this type, such as prospective criminal liability under the California "felon with a gun" statute.
An additional reason for seeking a pardon, as in mountain climbing, is "...because it is there." Do you really want to go to your grave without having done everything in your power to correct your mistake? Will the good in you be "... interred with your bones?" Do you want your grandchildren to know of you only as the "bank embezzler," or "the guy who ripped off the savings and loan?" To put it concisely, you may have the desire to "clear your name" in a general sense, to the fullest extent that you are legally able to do so.
