R.J.L. v. State

I cannot join in the majority’s decision to recede from this Court’s precedent dating to the mid-nineteenth century as to the manifest effect of the granting of an executive pardon. Not only does the majority brush aside our unambiguous and clearly controlling precedent, it also strikes a blow to a fundamental principle of the separation of powers: that the executive alone possesses the power to pardon. Today, we have sharply curtailed that power by validating legislative limitations that clearly conflict with the fundamental principle that the executive alone possesses the power to pardon…