Can someone tell me why Bill Clinton pardoned Mary Louise Campbell, the sister of Emmett Till's murderer?

Ask Wojo wrote:

Hmm. I don't know Clinton's motivation. But I would say that Rojo's question goes to the issue of how much responsibility should one sibling bear for another's actions.

An analogous question might be, should we hold Wojo responsible for Rojo's idiotic posts?

This, it’s pretty simple really. She’s not to blame for her brothers actions.

#1 I would be more than a little leery about a paper that used to be called the Klan-Ledger and is now owned by the same company as the USA Today.

#2 Why is Rojo talking about Bill Clinton? There are kind of a lot more important and relevant things right now that people need to be informed of and discuss. Hierarchy of importance, Rojo, please. We all know Bill Clinton did numerous bad things. But they pale in comparison. Kind of not a top priority at the moment.

libs get offended easily wrote:

Damn, I know liberals get offended easily but I'm still amazed by the above posts

Right, everyone just lighten up.

What’s more bizarre, the pardon or starting a thread about it this particular moment?

We have a disease that’s killing thousands.

Businesses shut down.

Massive protests over racism.

A huge election coming up.

The sports world interrupted.

Unsure when schools will reopen.

Let’s talk about the pardon of the sister of a murderer who had a food stamp fraud on her record.

If you want to go down a rabbit hole, start a thread about each presidential pardon over the last 20 years.

Rojo - Finally decided to sign-up to respond to your post and make sure it's clear how pardoning processes tend to work. I also want to clear up all the political mudslinging that the conversation has already gotten into without people knowing a few facts.

There is a process in the Justice Department through which requests for clemency and pardon are vetted. Usually, they review the circumstances of the case, the behavior of the individual, testimony, evidence, etc. and decide the if an act of clemency or pardon will lead to substantial injustice by overturning a warranted conviction or sentence. The requests to enter this process are made from everywhere - normal citizens, politicians, and politically connected individuals.

After this process, a group of approved files goes to the White House, and the White House staff usually whittles down the list. Often removing political hot potatoes or obvious tit-for-tat acts of clemency or pardon.

I don't know why "Bill Clinton" pardoned Campbell. But, in reality, he probably didn't actively and knowingly go through the details of Campbell's crime, her conviction, etc. I'm sure the connection to Till came up and was discussed. But honestly, the President tends to know very little of the details of these types of things. Usually the President gives the parameters of the pardons he's willing to make to the staff, and they deliver recommendations.

It's possible that Campbell was a relatively minor contributor to the forgery crime - somewhat in the know, but not really. It's possible that she got swept up and prosecuted because she was the sister of a known murderer and that was evidenced in the trial and conviction. There could be a million reasons why this pardon, to the Justice Department and the White House staff, seemed justified. And it is always possible there could have been "a favor" somewhere in there, but that likely would not have put her name on the desk in the first place if, in fact, the normal Justice Department procedure was followed.

And Presidents do, in the vast majority of cases, follow the Justice Department recommendations. From what is publicly available, the vast, vast majority of the "hundreds" of people referenced by posters that Clinton and GW Bush, and the 2,000 by Obama went through the process. Most were pardons for low level crimes or - particularly in Obama's case - clemency (e.g. reduction of sentences) for crimes related to drug laws that have since been changed to lower sentencing penalties. Not all, as the President does have the authority. Of note, to-date, few of President Trump's pardons have come through the Justice Department process, which should concern legal scholars and Constitutional experts if the trend continues. Randomness can get us into 8th amendment issues if punishments are seen less related to the crime and more related to knowing the person in the Oval Office.

This doesn't help you out, but I'll leave it at this: I have no idea what was in Clinton's heart when he signed it. Only what was done and the common circumstances around the act.

I guess I am confused. Why and how are you lumping in the sister of a racist murderer to a food stamp fraud case. Was the sister involved in the murder? If not, then that is irrelevant. You just happened to be reading up on Emmitt Till.

Thanks, Berlin Runner for a seemingly informative response to a troll post if I ever saw one. I never knew how these worked, and a quick visit to justice dot gov/pardon brought me more info.

I don't care about politics, just adding to the topic because this was a big deal that people outside of Arizona didn't pay attention to. Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio in 2017...read about that and you will understand where the two roads diverge.

Skadoosh

Jobby Hogger's opinion wrote:

can you stop riding on top of trump for once in your life?

You know rojo is a registered Democrat right?

Emmit Till's father raped and murdered two white women in Italy, for which he was executed by the US Army.

Ditto for the kid.

"Black Wall Street" destruction was because the blacks KILLED 10 white people, and then refused to turn the shooters over to police. Instead, the blacks circled the tribal wagons and tried to kill a bunch more whiteys.

And remember the song "Hurricane" by Bob Dylan? Well, Hurricane Ruben Carter was ALSO GUILTY as sin, and went on to nearly kill a nice black lady helping him with his legal case.

Bob Dylan wrote songs pretending both Hurricane and Emmit Till were innocent. All to advance Zimmerman's narrow tribal agenda.

Just like Jeff Zucker of CNN and the NBC/Comcast and Disney and Viacom/CBS minyans are doing now.

I've come to accept that even Eric Garner in NYC had it coming. He was warned repeatedly by cops not to sell cigarettes RIGHT OUTSIDE A STORE. Stores pay crazy rent and taxes to stay in business in NYC.

Eric Garner ignored the many warnings not to do it, and then when they FINALLY arrested him, he RESISTED arrest while weighing 300 pounds.

If you're going to resist arrest like a thug, it's better to weigh about half as much as the cop, rather than TWICE as much as the cop.

And Garner wasn't even killed by the chokehold, a chokehold that was 100% necessary btw, given the size advantage Eric Garner had.

Garner died from an ASTHMA ATTACK, one of his MANY serious health issues. What kind of moron resists arrest while having numerous serious health issues?

Then the cops didn't cry when Eric Garner died in front of them. As if they were supposed to cherish his life and cry at his death.

And then a year later Garner's 40 year old daughter dropped dead from a hereditary heart condition shared with her father.

And when Garner's family got tens of millions of dollars from NYC, his wife didn't even move out of the crime-ridden housing projects. She's probably already broke.

streak wrote:

Bill and Hillary are racist, but I don’t see the scandal in this particular incident. She was pardoned for food stamp fraud, not anything to do with the murder. As for why she would want to be pardoned, there are many possible reasons. For example, Mark Wahlberg sought a pardon for his conviction of beating an Asian man decades later so he could open a business in California.

This is not the answer. I'm no Clinton fan, but he was the president most loved by black voters (pre Obama, and sometimes even after) because he just isn't racist and it's clear as day to black people.

In fact, Clinton did not use the pardon power much, not any more than the Bushes or Reagan - until his final year in office (stats for all presidents can be seen here:

). Then he pardoned 200+ people. (Obama and Trump followed essentially the same pattern; LBJ did the reverse) (in the old days presidents issued a lot more pardons than they do now). Some of them were drug dealers. Others miscreants of others sorts. What has always seemed problematic about Clinton's pardons is that some of them appeared to be directed at friends of friends, rather than based on any idea of justice.

My guess here is simply that Campbell's family is well connected in the Mississippi good ol boy network and that's not so far from the Arkansas good ol boy network of which the Clintons are indubitably a part.

None of this presents even a moderately coherent defense of Chauvin. That previously the same abusive tactic had not resulted in death is no defense of using it.

If you can watch that video and come away with the idea that anything other than murder occurred, you have a mental problem.

Just to add to this: anyone who has ever had a position of authority in a big institution and has had to sign documents in an official capacity knows that when signing 200 documents such a person has not read them and is simply depending on the judgment of subordinates. No president of anything has time to inform himself about 200 cases of anything. He might add one or two cases to the pile, because some crony asked him too, or because he cares passionately about freeing Blackwater mercenaries, but for the rest he is trusting whoever is charged with vetting them.