"Jonathan Achtemeier pleaded guilty in November 2024, admitting that between 2019 and 2022, he tampered with the monitoring devices on hundreds of vehicles nationwide so those trucks would not detect that their owners removed pollution control hardware systems. Achtemeier advertised his services on the internet and was able to tamper with the monitoring devices in diesel trucks remotely. Between 2019 and 2021 Achtemeier’s company grossed $4.3 million. "
I can. Let’s say for example that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was used to prosecute you for downloading JSTOR documents which you had already access to. And you are facing the cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, personal asset forfeiture. Now, would a pardon from the highest executive office be a miscarriage when the prosecution should never have happened in the first place? I don’t think so, I don’t think all laws are neutral (eg Patriot Act) or all prosecutions are equally valid, therefore a pardon may indeed be a way to tipping the scales to a more fair society.
That said, I have never seen the current administration do that.
I think they're more talking about systemic effects resulting from such a concept. When you have unchecked power concentrated at a single position, that position will inevitably use that power for their own personal gain, which in the case of pardons happens by enabling crime.
We will always find ourselves in situations in which our existing laws allow for people to fall through cracks. I can see pardoning as a way to address that partially, yet it doesn’t explain what an adequate judgment would be instead. It’s simultaneously important in niche situations and yet too coarse of a solution.
I don’t think parent commenter says so, he only claims one thing for himself, that pardon power is always a miscarriage of justice. Then he asks another thing of us, which is explicitly excluding himself, indicating that he thinks all laws and all applications of law and justice is fair.
You can as easily use pardons to tip the scales to a more corrupt society.
If you assume, hypothetically, that the justice system is operating as it should, a pardon means giving one person the right to ignore the laws of the country for a select few acquaintances.
If one has to tolerate this blatant avenue for favoritism, I’d rather see the Supreme Court or judges themselves invested with this power, rather than the president.
I guess I am biased by believing in the separation of the executive and judiciary powers.
An argument against vesting pardons to the SC is that they are supposed to simply apply the law, not make quick corrections based on value judgments. If separation of powers is a concern, remember that checks and balances also exist.
If I may suggest anything, perhaps it replacing the president should be made easier, either by making the people be able to recall the president, or by making the people recall the congressmen, and the congressmen then follow through with impeachment. Or both.
I agree with the example given in the sibling comment, and this is why the framers believed there needed to be a final “safety valve” outside the courts. Legal systems are imperfect, and sometimes a pardon is the only practical way to remedy an egregious error.
Another example where pardons might be useful is when laws are changed after sentencing. If the new law does not provide for retroactive adjustments, a president or governor can grant clemency in order to correct disparities in sentencing outcomes.
The biggest problem with diesel engines is that they tend to last nearly forever by virtue of their design (tolerating high compression ratios).
I see a lot of ancient big trucks on the road today that are completely legal in Texas but would probably get you sent straight to jail in Europe. The owners of these vehicles are oftentimes also diesel mechanics to some degree and can make their machine run much longer than they can.
The problem with all of this is that there is this entire niche of the market that you simply cannot penetrate with policy. I think some of these old trucks should be taken off the road, but I also sympathize with the owner/operators of these vehicles. I don't think many people drive a big dump truck around for fun (even in Texas). That's mostly a phenomenon on the consumer side. Rolling coal out of your Ram 3500 isn't something that really bothers me. The optics are horrible, but the actual impact is not. The thing that concerns me is the fleet of old Kenworth trucks from 1988 that the local construction company uses all day every day. Straight pipes and a constant rumble the USGS could monitor tend to drown out the broader concerns regarding emissions, but those also pop into your mind if you happen to be riding behind one.
I think a lot of the defeat device stuff is blown out of proportion for political reasons. Something approximating this has been going on since the 70s. Anything pertaining to consumer vehicles makes me roll my eyes. The studies they ran around VW are absolutely hyperbolic (hundreds of billions in damages, 100k+ dead eventually). Compare the marginal impact of slightly cheating emissions standards in a family sedan with one supermax cargo ship or a data center parking lot full of gas turbines and you'll probably find you are wasting your energy on the car thing. The deception is what makes most people angry. Not the actual impact.
All 9 should be immediately arrested again in 2029, I’m sure they’re planning to go back to their criminal ways. I’ll save this article to remind the next AG about it.
Sarcasm, presumably, but unless they're caught rolling coal[1] again, they can't be re-arrested as they've been pardoned for the previous cases. It's a tacky crime, hardly the most serious, but that makes a presidential pardon seem especially absurd here.
It is a serious crime. Diesel exhaust is s IARC type 1 carcinogen. Somehow people go nuts when companies pollute water but not when they pollute the air they breathe
I thought that most of them were in for selling/commercially installing defeat devices so that others could roll coal or do other things with defeated pollution controls. I assume that would likely be easier to identify than just hoping to someday catching them rolling coal would be.
Did you read the article? This was not a case of "fixing their car" this was a 4 million dollar business selling illegal services to disable emission controls. They absolutely deserved to be prosecuted.
It is a serious crime. Diesel fumes are very damaging to the lungs and heart. Imagine a pregnant woman being exposed to them. There is no logical way to make light of it.
From your link:
> the practice can increase nitrogen oxide emissions as much as 310 times, non-methane hydrocarbons 1,400 times, and carbon monoxide 120 times
Let’s not lose credibility by blowing things out of proportion. We’re talking about crimes. Out of all the crimes possible, rolling coal is relatively tame. Personally Id say it’s more severe than loitering, less severe than trespassing. But certainly it’s not theft, assault, murder, etc.
I'm not being sarcastic at all. I think it's obvious that most or all of these men will interpret the pardon as permission to violate the Clean Air Act, and it's absolutely essential to the rule of law that they be punished harshly for doing so. They must understand that they are not above the law. Perhaps some of them have learned the error of their ways, and won't be rolling coal ever again; if so I wish them well.
Note that at least one of the men, Jonathan Achtemeier, was caught doing much more than "rolling coal" himself. He led a nationwide conspiracy to "roll coal", charging money to help hundreds of people do it although he knew it was a crime. Career criminals like Mr. Achtemeier rarely stop when they get caught the first time.
"Jonathan Achtemeier pleaded guilty in November 2024, admitting that between 2019 and 2022, he tampered with the monitoring devices on hundreds of vehicles nationwide so those trucks would not detect that their owners removed pollution control hardware systems. Achtemeier advertised his services on the internet and was able to tamper with the monitoring devices in diesel trucks remotely. Between 2019 and 2021 Achtemeier’s company grossed $4.3 million. "
Fixing his own vehicle... for sure...
I can't see any way in which a "Pardon Power" can ever result in anything except miscarriage of justice.
If you think there needs to be an escape hatch to fix injustices then you have a bigger problem.
I can. Let’s say for example that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act was used to prosecute you for downloading JSTOR documents which you had already access to. And you are facing the cumulative maximum penalty of $1 million in fines, 35 years in prison, personal asset forfeiture. Now, would a pardon from the highest executive office be a miscarriage when the prosecution should never have happened in the first place? I don’t think so, I don’t think all laws are neutral (eg Patriot Act) or all prosecutions are equally valid, therefore a pardon may indeed be a way to tipping the scales to a more fair society.
That said, I have never seen the current administration do that.
I think they're more talking about systemic effects resulting from such a concept. When you have unchecked power concentrated at a single position, that position will inevitably use that power for their own personal gain, which in the case of pardons happens by enabling crime.
But isn’t that what the parent says? Fix the underlying laws instead of relying on a single person to randomly overrule the law
We will always find ourselves in situations in which our existing laws allow for people to fall through cracks. I can see pardoning as a way to address that partially, yet it doesn’t explain what an adequate judgment would be instead. It’s simultaneously important in niche situations and yet too coarse of a solution.
I don’t think parent commenter says so, he only claims one thing for himself, that pardon power is always a miscarriage of justice. Then he asks another thing of us, which is explicitly excluding himself, indicating that he thinks all laws and all applications of law and justice is fair.
Fixing the laws takes time.
You can as easily use pardons to tip the scales to a more corrupt society.
If you assume, hypothetically, that the justice system is operating as it should, a pardon means giving one person the right to ignore the laws of the country for a select few acquaintances.
If one has to tolerate this blatant avenue for favoritism, I’d rather see the Supreme Court or judges themselves invested with this power, rather than the president.
I guess I am biased by believing in the separation of the executive and judiciary powers.
An argument against vesting pardons to the SC is that they are supposed to simply apply the law, not make quick corrections based on value judgments. If separation of powers is a concern, remember that checks and balances also exist.
If I may suggest anything, perhaps it replacing the president should be made easier, either by making the people be able to recall the president, or by making the people recall the congressmen, and the congressmen then follow through with impeachment. Or both.
A finite set of symbols (laws) can never express everything a reasonable person would want to be allowed to happen in the world.
I agree with the example given in the sibling comment, and this is why the framers believed there needed to be a final “safety valve” outside the courts. Legal systems are imperfect, and sometimes a pardon is the only practical way to remedy an egregious error.
Another example where pardons might be useful is when laws are changed after sentencing. If the new law does not provide for retroactive adjustments, a president or governor can grant clemency in order to correct disparities in sentencing outcomes.
Local cops/AG persecuting groups they don’t like
The biggest problem with diesel engines is that they tend to last nearly forever by virtue of their design (tolerating high compression ratios).
I see a lot of ancient big trucks on the road today that are completely legal in Texas but would probably get you sent straight to jail in Europe. The owners of these vehicles are oftentimes also diesel mechanics to some degree and can make their machine run much longer than they can.
The problem with all of this is that there is this entire niche of the market that you simply cannot penetrate with policy. I think some of these old trucks should be taken off the road, but I also sympathize with the owner/operators of these vehicles. I don't think many people drive a big dump truck around for fun (even in Texas). That's mostly a phenomenon on the consumer side. Rolling coal out of your Ram 3500 isn't something that really bothers me. The optics are horrible, but the actual impact is not. The thing that concerns me is the fleet of old Kenworth trucks from 1988 that the local construction company uses all day every day. Straight pipes and a constant rumble the USGS could monitor tend to drown out the broader concerns regarding emissions, but those also pop into your mind if you happen to be riding behind one.
I think a lot of the defeat device stuff is blown out of proportion for political reasons. Something approximating this has been going on since the 70s. Anything pertaining to consumer vehicles makes me roll my eyes. The studies they ran around VW are absolutely hyperbolic (hundreds of billions in damages, 100k+ dead eventually). Compare the marginal impact of slightly cheating emissions standards in a family sedan with one supermax cargo ship or a data center parking lot full of gas turbines and you'll probably find you are wasting your energy on the car thing. The deception is what makes most people angry. Not the actual impact.
All 9 should be immediately arrested again in 2029, I’m sure they’re planning to go back to their criminal ways. I’ll save this article to remind the next AG about it.
Sarcasm, presumably, but unless they're caught rolling coal[1] again, they can't be re-arrested as they've been pardoned for the previous cases. It's a tacky crime, hardly the most serious, but that makes a presidential pardon seem especially absurd here.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal
It is a serious crime. Diesel exhaust is s IARC type 1 carcinogen. Somehow people go nuts when companies pollute water but not when they pollute the air they breathe
I thought that most of them were in for selling/commercially installing defeat devices so that others could roll coal or do other things with defeated pollution controls. I assume that would likely be easier to identify than just hoping to someday catching them rolling coal would be.
The presidential pardon was an absurd response to their absurd arrest and prosecution in the first place.
What was absurd about the arrest? Were clown costumes involved somehow?
Did you read the article? This was not a case of "fixing their car" this was a 4 million dollar business selling illegal services to disable emission controls. They absolutely deserved to be prosecuted.
It is a serious crime. Diesel fumes are very damaging to the lungs and heart. Imagine a pregnant woman being exposed to them. There is no logical way to make light of it.
From your link:
> the practice can increase nitrogen oxide emissions as much as 310 times, non-methane hydrocarbons 1,400 times, and carbon monoxide 120 times
Let’s not lose credibility by blowing things out of proportion. We’re talking about crimes. Out of all the crimes possible, rolling coal is relatively tame. Personally Id say it’s more severe than loitering, less severe than trespassing. But certainly it’s not theft, assault, murder, etc.
They weren't arrested for rolling coal.
I'm not being sarcastic at all. I think it's obvious that most or all of these men will interpret the pardon as permission to violate the Clean Air Act, and it's absolutely essential to the rule of law that they be punished harshly for doing so. They must understand that they are not above the law. Perhaps some of them have learned the error of their ways, and won't be rolling coal ever again; if so I wish them well.
Note that at least one of the men, Jonathan Achtemeier, was caught doing much more than "rolling coal" himself. He led a nationwide conspiracy to "roll coal", charging money to help hundreds of people do it although he knew it was a crime. Career criminals like Mr. Achtemeier rarely stop when they get caught the first time.