Mark Osler, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law who specializes in clemency, spoke with The New York Times about Lindsay Clancy’s attorney publicly asking President Donald Trump to pardon her following a mistrial in her Massachusetts murder case.
From the article:
Ms. Clancy’s trial, in which she pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, ended on Friday in a mistrial after jurors were unable to come to a unanimous decision. Two legal experts agreed in interviews that Mr. Trump cannot pardon Ms. Clancy on the first-degree murder charges she still faces in Massachusetts.
“It’s not a federal case, and the pardon power only covers federal cases, and that’s very clearly established,” said Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minneapolis who specializes in clemency issues. ...
Ms. Oyer and Professor Osler speculated that Mr. Reddington might be trying to seek a similarly symbolic pardon from Mr. Trump in order to ramp up pressure on prosecutors and the governor. “It could be that if Trump can do the same type of signaling at a federal level, then the governor of Massachusetts will follow,” Professor Osler said.
