- Trump
announced pardon for Juan Hernández. - Hernández
convicted of drug trafficking charges. - Serving
45-year sentence in the US.
Trump stated on Truth Social that Hernández, who was found
guilty in 2024 of plotting to bring 400 tons of cocaine into the United States,
would receive the order.
Trump connected the pardon to his backing for conservative
candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura in Honduras’ next election, threatening
to withhold U.S. assistance if Asfura loses.
Concerns regarding Trump’s use of executive clemency have
been raised by his pardon of a foreign leader found guilty in U.S. courts,
which seems to go against his strict anti-drug trafficking stance in Latin
America.
Additionally, Trump’s remarks can be interpreted as an
attempt to influence a foreign election, which would strengthen Hernández’s
party and threaten Xiomara Castro’s leftist administration.
Trump declared that this should not be allowed
to occur and promised to back Tito Asfura in the next presidential election,
implying that if he lost, the United States would cease aiding Honduras and
“not be throwing good money after bad.”
Hernández, a member of the National Party of the nation, was
president from 2014 to 2022, although he was beset by corruption scandals that
sparked large-scale demonstrations.
He was charged with accepting bribes from Joaquin Guzman,
the former head of the Mexican Sinaloa gang known as “El Chapo.” Last
year, Hernández was sentenced to 45 years in prison in Manhattan.
California representative Norma Torres wrote on X:
“I
spent years fighting corruption in Latin America.
Hernández ran a cartel-backed
criminal empire that trafficked over 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S., used
his office to steal U.S. taxpayer dollars, and bought political power with drug
money.”
David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama,
wrote on X:
“How do you reconcile President Trump’s self-proclaimed war
on “narco-terrorists” with the full and complete pardon he just gave
this notorious facilitator of drug trafficking?”
Trump did not provide a date for Hernández’s pardon, which
would have overturned his conviction and imprisonment and released him.
On Sunday, voters in Honduras will cast ballots for the
country’s president, vice president, and all 128 members of the National
Congress.
How would a presidential pardon affect ongoing appeals or
convictions?
A presidential pardon forgives the civil offense,
effectively obliterating the conviction’s legal consequences by relieving the
philanthropist of all corrections, penalties, and disabilities directly
stemming from it, similar as incarceration, forfeitures, and loss of civil
rights.
It restores the individual to a status” as if he had
n’t committed the offense,” per Supreme Court precedent in Ex parte
Garland( 1866), making them” a new man” with renewed civil
capacities. The conviction record persists for literal purposes but holds no
ongoing corrective force.
An amnesty renders prayers questionable by nulling the
conviction and judgment , barring any need or base for appellate review since
the beginning legal penalties cease to live. Courts have held
thatpost-conviction absolutions remove the case from judicial
