Jack Johnson Will He Be Pardoned?

I've said it like three times. The US Dist Attorney admitted to targeting Johnson. The guy admitted it himself.


And you don't prove someones innocence beyond a shadow of the doubt, you have it reversed. You must prove guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt.


"It's obvious that's wrong. Don't be ridiculous. Shut off the politically correct little firewall of yours. Is this white guilt?"

Ok, you still don't get it. It's not really a matter of opinion unless you're from the KKK. You don't just choose to start investigating someone because they're black. That is what we call discrimination.

You have a too basic understanding of the US justice system. It's obvious you're not from this country. If you're curious, and want to to learn more about it, just ask. But if you want to keep arguing shallow points and calling me names, no thanks!

 

If those are the standards we set for prosecution, then there are probably tens of thousands of people who should be under investigation.

Yet only 14 have ever been charged. And that's because it's a bad law. Unless you're a lawyer, you wouldn't even know you were breaking the law.

You think Johnson is the only person in the last 100 years to send under $100 to a traveling prostitute?

 

OBVIOUSLY. I'm asking for YOU to back up YOUR claims that there was no reason to investigate Johnson. Not the ACCUSATION.

Cause the opinions of the DA is INDICATIVE (and btw he didn't say JJ was prosecuted ONLY because he was black.). The thin number of convictions under the law is INDICATIVE.

If those two are the only reasons for YOU to dismiss the case than YOUR dismissal of the case is premature.

I'm adressing your posts not the trial. Christ you didn't even brought up the charges.

You can't do it can you? You can't handle a discussion involving race. If there's raced involved you can't see anything else.

 

Contrary to popular belief, Jack Johnson was not the first person prosecuted under this Act. In fact, in the Northern District of Illinois alone, there were forty Mann Act prosecutions brought before the Johnson case. There were MANY Mann Act prosecutions.

Under the law, if you wanted to have carnal knowledge of a woman, you had to be married to her, and if not, if you crossed state lines with her or paid her way to do so, and if your intention was to have intercourse with her, you could be prosecuted for a federal felony and subject to up to five years in prison. It was a morality law. In essence, the government could prosecute anyone whose morals they didn't like.

However, the government usually only went after men when the woman was white, not black. After all, the act was not meant to protect black women, just white women. Hence, the name of the act - The White Slave Traffic Act.

If Johnson had consorted with black women or black prostitutes, the government never would have prosecuted him. They would not have cared at all, and would have paid him no notice. He was prosecuted because he slept with white women. White men who consorted with black women were not prosecuted. But both white and black men were prosecuted if the woman was white.

Johnson's lawyers argued, and many might agree, that the law was an abuse of governmental power, a violation of personal liberties, a violation of the commerce clause because it has nothing to do with commercial goods, Congress lacked constitutional authority to make something not commercial a matter of interstate commerce, and the law violates the 10th amendment, which reserves to the states all those powers not specifically granted to Congress, and hence regulation of morality was a matter for the states, not the federal government. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, and upheld the law's constitutionality.

It wasn't until 1986 that the act was amended to get rid of the vague terms "debauchery" and "immoral purposes," so now it only covers acts for which someone could be subject to criminal prosecution. Further, the law was made gender neutral.

 

You are welcome.

Despite the law's original intent to prevent forced prostitution, the law was written so broadly that it wound up covering consensual *** between two adults even when the woman was not a prostitute. This gave the government a lot of power.

In fact, many women abused the law, because they could use the law as a sword rather than as a shield, blackmailing men who had crossed state lines with them, threatening to turn them in if they were not paid.

Other than my book, if you are interested in reading further about the Mann Act, check out Policing ***uality: The Mann Act and the Making of the FBI by Jessica R. Pliley.

Here is a review of it:

The White-Slave Traffic Act, commonly known as the Mann Act, was passed in the United States in 1910 and made it a felony to transport any ‘woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose’ across state lines. It was designed to fight a perceived growth of prostitution, especially the trafficking in of women from Europe to America. Pliley, drawing largely from the records of the Bureau of Immigration, Bureau of Investigation, and then Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), examines the way these agencies used the expansion of their powers less to protect women and more to control ***uality according to their own conservative culture. Using case files, Pliley shows how ideas about women’s ***uality and the vagueness of the phrase ‘any immoral purpose’ were used to police ***ual and moral boundaries. She illustrates how the law was more often employed by the FBI before World War II to prosecute unapproved premarital, extramarital, and interracial ***ual relationships, than to prosecute human trafficking…A valuable contribution for those curious about the history of women, gender, and ***uality, as well as those interested in the role of policing and the FBI in the cultural and political history of the U.S. in the 20th century. (Jessica Moran Library Journal 2015-01-01)

Much like the drug war, the Mann Act is a good example of how the government has used morality laws to expand its power and influence. Pliley argues that the expansion of the FBI and its power was related to the Mann Act. Pass a morality law, then spend a lot of taxpayer money enforcing that law.

This is a description of the book:

America’s first anti–*** trafficking law, the 1910 Mann Act, made it illegal to transport women over state lines for prostitution “or any other immoral purpose.” It was meant to protect women and girls from being seduced or sold into ***ual slavery. But, as Jessica Pliley illustrates, its enforcement resulted more often in the policing of women’s ***ual behavior, reflecting conservative attitudes toward women’s roles at home and their movements in public. By citing its mandate to halt illicit ***uality, the fledgling Bureau of Investigation gained entry not only into brothels but also into private bedrooms and justified its own expansion.

Policing ***uality links the crusade against *** trafficking to the rapid growth of the Bureau from a few dozen agents at the time of the Mann Act into a formidable law enforcement organization that cooperated with state and municipal authorities across the nation. In pursuit of offenders, the Bureau often intervened in domestic squabbles on behalf of men intent on monitoring their wives and daughters. Working prostitutes were imprisoned at dramatically increased rates, while their male clients were seldom prosecuted.

In upholding the Mann Act, the FBI reinforced ***ually conservative views of the chaste woman and the respectable husband and father. It built its national power and prestige by expanding its legal authority to police Americans’ ***uality and by marginalizing the very women it was charged to protect.

 

I agree that it was/is a bad law.
I agree that Johnson was targeted because he was a haughty Black.

I still say that a pardon is the wrong vehicle to make amends.

U.S. Presidential pardons are for guilty people. A pardon linked with anyone's name implies guilt.

You need to move on to some other method of remedying the past. Anyone who recommends a pardon for Johnson, doesn't know what a pardon is.

 

A pardon can be for either the innocent or the guilty. Also, it can be a full pardon, or just a commutation of the sentence. It is up to the executive granting the pardon.

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Presidential+pardon

 

You can buy my book in the U.S.:

http://www.amazon.com/Ring-Jack-Joh...sr=8-1&keywords=in+the+ring+with+jack+johnson

Or U.K.:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ring-Jack-J...sr=8-1&keywords=in+the+ring+with+jack+johnson

 

At the end of the day does it really matter whether or not Jack Johnson is pardoned or not almost a hundred years later for a " crime " that many people probably believe was only politically self serving ( as are most laws ) anyway?

 

From the US Dept of Justice website:

A pardon is not a sign of vindication and does not connote or establish innocence.

http://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon-information-and-instructions

As posted before:
Bu r**** v United States (1915)
A pardon carries an "imputation of guilt", and accepting a pardon is "an admission of guilt".

 

I don't think it does.

 

Legally though, a pardon puts the person back in the position they were before they were charged. Their rights are fully restored. Hence, regardless of how we want to spin it, it is as if the person was never convicted. The president can pardon someone who he feels was guilty, and a president can pardon someone who he feels was innocent. There is no requirement or limitation. He can pardon as many or few folks as he wants. Really, it is all semantics, because Johnson is dead, and a pardon does nothing for him personally, though it might be symbolic vindication for those who felt he was wronged by the prosecution or the conviction or the sentence.