Nazis! Suspensions! Nuclear War! Trades! What a week for questions about law and fantasy football!  Unsurprisingly, most of your law questions were about our Ululating Sack Of Wet FartsDear Leader and the legal ramifications of his relentless drive to make this world an even more terrible place than it already is Great Leadership (TM).  I did get a couple of questions about Zeke but I’m holding them until next week when we see how the appeal shakes out.  Let’s jump right in:

Law: So my understanding is that if you are granted a pardon by the President, you actually have to enter it with the court and doing so is considered to be an acknowledgment of guilt. Is this correct? 

Not exactly. A pardon acts as a bar to any ongoing or future prosecution and/or punishment for the specific offense to which it pertains.  A pardon does not have the same effect as a guilty plea.  A pardon can be given for any reason, including the President’s belief that the defendant is not guilty of the offense or that the law alleged to have been broken is unjust.  In this respect, it acts as a check on the power of the legislative and judicial branches of government. Here’s an excerpt of what happens when you get pardoned from the Office of the Pardon Atttorey:

A presidential pardon does not erase or expunge the records of a conviction. When a pardon is granted, however, OPA notifies the United States Probation Office and other officials in the district of conviction of the President’s action. In addition, OPA notifies the Federal Bureau of Investigation so that the pardoned individual’s criminal history record may be to reflect the grant of pardon. Thereafter, the criminal history record will list both the conviction and the pardon. Accordingly, a presidential pardon does not relieve the recipient from the obligation of disclosing his conviction in any circumstance where he is required to report that information. However, the pardoned person may include the information that a pardon has been granted and may present the warrant of pardon he has received as evidence of the pardon.

And if it’s true that once you’ve accepted the pardon you can no longer invoke your fifth amendment rights and must testify truthfully, what’s to prevent someone from committing perjury and then simply being pardoned from *that* (if it ever happens to come up).

I’ve seen some so-called “scholarly” articles that claim that a pardoned person can later be compelled to testify because s/he would be incapable of incriminating him/herself.  I suppose it’s a fair argument, though it is not without some loopholes.  For one, if a judge finds someone in contempt for refusing to testify, the President could issue a pardon for that.  Also, lying on a pardon application is a separate offense ( 18 U.S.C. §§ 1001 and 357), so if the testimony contradicts something in the application, then you could argue that the pardon also does not relieve you of your right to not self-incriminate under the Fifth Amendment.

While a pardon does apply to potential future prosecution, it only applies to offenses that were already committed at the  time of the pardon, which means that the President can’t pardon someone prospectively for future offenses.  In theory, I suppose the President could conspire with someone to commit nefarious acts and then repeatedly issue pardons for such conduct.  A President’s pardon power is what we call “plenary,” meaning unlimited. In theory, the President could even pardon himself.  During the last two impeachment proceedings, it was thought that both Presidents Nixon and Clinton could pardon themselves.  I assume that they had enough dignity to realize the damage that such conduct could have on the Presidency and didn’t try.  Dignity is probably not one of the current bloviating hairpiece masquerading as a real boy’s President’s most obvious virtues.  So let’s wait and see.

In other words, what mechanism exists that prevents the President to get someone to commit crimes on his/her behalf, and then pardoning their way out of any mess that arises? Is impeachment the only remedy?

The only remedy for a crooked President is impeachment.  Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution states that “The President, Vice-President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  In your scenario, promising pardons in exchange for something would be bribery (remember Marc Rich?). More good news is that “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” is a phrase that has no definition.  The House can impeach and the Senate can convict the President for literally anything as long as it has the votes.

Article I Section 3 states: “Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.”  Most constitutional scholars agree that a sitting President cannot be indicted and that if removed after impeachment, jeopardy would attach to any of the charges he was previously tried on.  Anything that wasn’t charged in the impeachment trial would still be prosecutable though. So think happy thoughts!

Fantasy: with how the Raiders are looking this year, I’m thinking of going full-on homer this year. In a twelve team league, where would you target the following players? Derek Carr, Amari Cooper, Michael Crabtree, Marshawn Lynch, Jared Cook.

Wait you’re from Vegas?  JKJKJKJKJKJK. I like the Raiders offense this year.  They were very good up until Carr got hurt last year.  Latavias Murray had 12 rushing TDs and he sucks.  Now they have Beast Mode and even after a year off, I bet he still has a great season.  Cooper and Crabtree have been hit or miss for their careers so I wouldn’t take them that high.

To answer your question, I’d target Lynch towards the late first or early second round.  Amari towards the 4th or 5th round, Crabtree towards the 5th or 6th , and Carr somewhere between the 6th and 9th.  I wouldn’t touch Cook unless I was desperate.  Carr has had a few good tight ends in his career and he really doesn’t target them all that much.

Law: Interesting legal question I saw posted on the Facebook: are there any civil or criminal remedies available to the Charlottesville victim’s family or others visavis police inaction in the wake of the chaos even before the car rammed into the crowd?

Take a look at my author bio where it says “one day he may refuse to save your life.”  That’s a reference to the common-law holdings on good samaritans.  Generally, no one has a duty to rescue or aid anyone in mortal danger. Once you start the rescue however, you have assumed the duty and can be sued if you fuck it up.  So the best advice I can give you is if you see someone in trouble:

A better explanation is that  in order to succeed on a negligence claim, you have to prove four things:  (1) that the Defendant owed a Duty of Care to the Plaintiff; and (2) that the Defendant breached/failed to uphold that Duty of Care; and (3) that the Plaintiff suffered an injury; and(4) that the injury was caused by the Defendant’s breach of the Duty of Care.

In your question, you don’t even get past the first prong.  In DeShaney vs Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989), and again in Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005), the Supreme Court ruled that the police have no duty to protect individuals.  These cases both involve extremely disturbing facts, but Castle Rock is a particularly fucked up case because Ms. Gonzales had obtained a restraining order against her estranged husband which mandated that the police arrest him if he came within 100 feet of her or their kids.  He violated the restraining order, and Gonzales called the police who did nothing.  Then nothing happened and everything was great because I fell asleep and dreamed that we lived in a good world with a just god.  In reality, the husband murdered all of the kids.  Justice Scalia, writing for the majority found that the police had no duty to arrest the husband citing “a well-established tradition of police discretion has long coexisted with apparently mandatory arrest statutes.”  I mean, I get it:  police shouldn’t be required to choose between risking mortal danger and getting sued, but that is a particularly cruel result.  So the next time you hear some d-bag in a blue lives matter t-shirt scream that “if a cop sees a law get broken, he has to arrest that person,” you can feel free to tell him that he’s full of shit.

So, no, I don’t think the victim’s family could recover from the city or the police department.  Of course, in the more batshit insane corners of the internet, theories are being proffered that the mayor of Charlottesville ordered the police to back down with the specific intent of creating a body count so he could blame those nice young men in khakis who were carrying torches and use it to smear the 71 year old man who is still futilely trying to obtain his father’s love President. If that ends up being the truth, we can revisit this discussion.

Fantasy: Is Davante Adams worth keeping in a ppr league? 

Oh man, this is the hardest question of the week.  Davante Adams is a goddamn fantasy enigma.  My prediction is that if you keep him, he’ll put up single digit points every week until you decide to drop him, at which point he’ll score 6 TDs in three straight games.  Fuck Davante Adams and Mike McCarthy.

Alright, I’ve got a little time left for one non-presidential question:

If an invisible imaginary internet friend living in a state where recreational weed is legal (say Oregon) wanted to ship a batch of edibles to an invisible imaginary internet friend in another state where recreational weed is legal (say Washington), how much potential trouble would he/she get in? Assume UPS or FedEx, no postal service.

The potential trouble is v. bad, as the millennials like to say.  Although the states of Washington and Oregon have legalized the devil weed, it’s still illegal under federal law.  And transporting such illegal substances between states is an additional separate charge.  I guess it’s a good thing that you said you’re not using USPS because that would be an another separate charge.  Now that I’ve made it clear that this type of behavior is ILLEGAL AS FUCK, and YOU SHOULD NOT DO IT,  I’ve done my duty.  How likely you are to get caught is a different story and may depend on the steps you take to reduce such a risk.  I’m sure there’s plenty of material on the interwebz on how to do that.  But let me again stress that it is illegal.

What if the states are not adjoining? Does that make a difference?

Fantasy: What position would you go with on the first round?

This is a good time to talk a little bit about my somewhat controversial theory regarding fantasy QBs.  I don’t think it’s worth it to reach for a top 5 QB in your draft.  In my primary league in 2015, Cam Newton was the top fantasy QB with approximately 478 points. Blake Bortles, on the other hand had 407 points.  Cam was a first or second round pick while Bortles was a saavy waiver wire pickup.  In terms of draft value, the extra 4 points/game that Cam got you isn’t worth a first or second round pick.  The NFL is a QB driven league. Any competent QB will put up big numbers. And so will Blake Bortles in garbage time. Personally, I’d rather have two top line RBs or one top line RB and one WR and go for a QB in the middle of the draft.

That’s all for this week.  Keep sending me your questions either in the comments, on Twitter, or at [email protected]

This column is for entertainment purposes only. This is general information and not formal legal advice or legal representation.  If you need any of that, you need to go see an attorney in real life.  Legal problems are often serious and fact-specific; this is a dick joke blog.  The advice given in this column is non-binding and nothing contained herein shall constitute an attorney-client relationship.