Pardoning The Wrongfully Convicted

Traditionally a pardon is used to forgive a crime for which a person has been convicted and sentenced, although it is possible, as in the case of Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon, to use a pardon to forgive a crime that has not yet been proven. There are many reasons why the president may accept a pardon petition, and he does not have to provide any of them. A petition can be based on a perceived injustice in sentencing, a determination that the person who committed the crime is sufficiently penitent, a determination that it is more in the public interest for this person to live as a free individual without restriction on ex-convicts, or a discovery that the conviction was wrongful, among other reasons. There are many cases where someone is pardoned after being wrongfully convicted: this often happens after the convicted person has become deceased.

Pardons for the Wrongfully Convicted

If you are interested in a pardon for your crime due to a wrongful conviction, whether it is a federal crime or a state crime, you will have to go through the petition process. You will not be able to petition for a pardon until the proscribed waiting period has elapsed; for federal pardon petitions this is five years. If you are currently serving in prison for a wrongful conviction, your conviction will be overturned and you will be released. If you are not, you will not have sufficient evidence to petition the government for a pardon based on wrongful conviction. If you are in a situation where you were wrongly convicted and that conviction has not been overturned, that is a legal matter and not one where a petition for pardon is appropriate, although the president or governor (or parole board or both, depending on the state) may decide to pardon you anyway.

Pardon vs. Expungement

In most cases, if you have been wrongfully convicted, what you really should be seeking is expungement. An expungement wipes away your conviction entirely, as if it never happened. If you are pardoned, you can explain that you were wrongfully conviction, but that original conviction will still turn up on your arrest record. If your criminal record is expunged, there is no record of the conviction and if you are asked if you have ever had a conviction, you can truthfully answer no, as if the conviction never happened.

Managing Your Clemency Needs

For all your clemency and expungement needs, you should get in touch with ClearUpMyRecord.com. Set up an account and start with their free eligibility check, which can help you determine what kind of relief you are eligible for. Then let ClearUpMyRecord.com provide you with all the forms you need to apply and all the instructions you need to apply correctly, and once you've done that, let them tell you the correct place to send your application. While using this method cannot guarantee clemency or expungement, it can give you a great chance of success, since you greatly reduce the possibility of error. This is all at a fraction of the cost of hiring a lawyer. If you have a wrongful conviction on your public record, you shouldn't let it follow you for the rest of your life, especially when it is relatively inexpensive and easy to find out how to get relief at ClearUpMyRecord.com.