Horton v. Gillespie

I maintain that the conclusion of the majority is erroneous for two sufficient reasons: (A), that the statute regulating the manner of presenting petitions for pardons is, so far as it affects the power of the Governor, merely directory, and that his failure to require observance of the statute does not invalidate a pardon; (B), that, even if the statute be held to be mandatory, the courts, in testing the validity of a pardon, must indulge the conclusive presumption that the Governor has correctly found and decided that the statute has been complied with.

In the first place, the statute bears…