Burdick v. United States

Burdick v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 16, 1914 Decided January 25, 1915
Full case name	George Burdick v. United States
Citations	236 U.S. 79 (more) 35 S. Ct. 267; 59 L. Ed. 476; 1915 U.S. LEXIS 1799
Case history
Prior	United States v. Burdick, 211 F. 492 (S.D.N.Y. 1914)
Court membership
Chief Justice Edward D. White Associate Justices Joseph McKenna · Oliver W. Holmes Jr. William R. Day · Charles E. Hughes Willis Van Devanter · Joseph R. Lamar Mahlon Pitney · James C. McReynolds
Case opinion
Majority	McKenna, joined by White, Holmes, Day, Hughes, Van Devanter, Lamar, Pitney
McReynolds took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that:

• A pardoned person must introduce the pardon into court proceedings, otherwise the pardon must be disregarded by the court.
• To do that, the pardoned person must accept the pardon. If a pardon is rejected, it cannot be forced upon its subject.

A pardon is an act of grace, proceeding from the power entrusted with the execution of the laws, which exempts the individual on whom it is bestowed from the punishment the law inflicts for a crime he has committed. It is the private though official act of the executive magistrate, delivered to the individual for whose benefit it is intended ... A private deed, not communicated to him, whatever may be its character, whether a pardon or release, is totally unknown and cannot be acted on.^[1]

United States v. Wilson (1833) established that it is possible to reject a (conditional) pardon, even for a capital sentence. Burdick affirmed that the same principle extends to unconditional pardons.