I thought I'd pass along an item I came across in the 1856 reminiscences of a Philadelphia lawyer (David Paul Brown, The Forum, or, Forty Years Full Practice at the Philadelphia Bar, vol. 1, p. 365), a book I was looking at for an entirely different purpose. The author is offering what he sees as an interesting anecdote about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Bushrod Washington, President Washington's nephew; the question related to the death penalty, not just (as in the more recent family pardon controversy) a lesser felony sentence, but I thought it still provided an interesting perspective, agree with it or not.
Mr. Stockton inquired, "Have you seen the account of the melancholy position in which Governor Desha, of Kentucky, has been placed by the crime of his son?" "It is a sad affair," said the Judge. "But," rejoined Stockton, "the worst of it is, that the son, having been convicted, the Governor, his father, must now decide between signing the death-warrant or a pardon." "And that, you consider a difficulty?" said the Judge. "Certainly," replied the interlocutor; "Why, I would like to know, now, what you, an upright, impartial, and inflexible judge, would do in such a case?"
