Burdick v. United States

Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that:
A pardon is an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed. It is the "private" though official act of the executive magistrate, delivered to the individual for whose benefit it is intended ... A private deed, not communicated to him, whatever may be its character, whether a pardon or release, is totally unknown and cannot be acted on.
"United States v. Wilson" (1833) 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.
Background.
A grand jury was investigating whether any Treasury Department employee was leaking information to the press. George Burdick, city editor of the "New York Tribune", took the Fifth and refused to reveal the source of his information. He was handed a pardon by US President Woodrow Wilson in a maneuver to force him to testify, but Burdick refused to accept it or testify. He was fined $500 and jailed until he complied.
Decision.
Justice Joseph McKenna delivered the opinion of the Court in favor of Burdick. The Court ruled Burdick was entitled to reject the pardon for a number of reasons, including the implicit admission of guilt and possibly objectionable terms contained in a conditional pardon. As Burdick was entitled to reject the pardon, he was also entitled to assert his right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment.
Although the Supreme Court's opinion stated that a pardon carries "an imputation of guilt, acceptance a confession of it," this was part of the Court's dictum for the case. Whether the acceptance of a pardon constitutes an admission of guilt by the recipient is not clear and has never been a question presented for argument or decision.
Later use.
After President Gerald Ford left the White House in 1977, close friends said that the President privately justified his pardon of Richard Nixon by carrying in his wallet a portion of the text of the "Burdick" decision, which stated that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt and that acceptance carries a confession of guilt. Ford made reference to the "Burdick" decision in his post-pardon written statement furnished to the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives on October 17, 1974. However, the reference related only to the portion of "Burdick" that supported the proposition that the Constitution does not limit the pardon power to cases of convicted offenders or even indicted offenders.