Burdick v. United States

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Burdick v. United States (1915)
by Joseph McKenna

Syllabus

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Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that:

A pardoned man must introduce the pardon into court proceedings, otherwise the pardon must be disregarded by the court.
To do this, the pardoned man must accept the pardon. If a pardon is rejected, it cannot be forced upon its subject.
A pardon carries an 'imputation of guilt', and accepting a pardon is 'an admission of guilt'.

United States v. Wilson established that it is possible to reject a (conditional) pardon, even for a capital sentence. Burdick affirmed that the same principle extends to unconditional pardons. Warning: template has been deprecated.

853944Burdick v. United States — SyllabusJoseph McKenna

Court Documents

Opinion of the Court

Wikipedia article

United States Supreme Court

236 U.S. 79

Burdick v. United States

Argued: December 16, 1914. --- Decided: January 25, 1915

Messrs. Henry A. Wise and Henry W. Sackett for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 79-82 intentionally omitted]

Solicitor General Davis for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 82-84 intentionally omitted]

Mr. Justice McKenna delivered the opinion of the court:

Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).

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