This is CBS, Eye on the World. I'm John Baxter. Professor Richard Epstein is here,

he teaches law at the University of Chicago and at NYU, and he's writing for the

Civitas Institute of University of Texas, Kiwitas Institute of the University of Texas,

Kiwitas Institute, University of Texas. Richard and I wait on the University of Texas, Kivitas Institute University of Texas.

Richard and I wait on the opinion of those in the University of Texas as to whether we do the Ciceronian production, whether we compromise or anglicize it as in civilization.

But in any event, the paper is up and it speaks to the pardon power of the presidency.

Clinton v. Jones, which was late 20th century, and ex parte Garland from the late 19th century.

What do they tell us about the pardon power?

Well, I mean, what they tell you is a lot, which is that essentially what you have to do is when you're doing all these things,

beware of the fact that if you start engaging in abuses of either convictions or pardons,

things are very bad. And so the Clinton v. Jones case was not a pardon case. It was a question

of to what extent you allow litigation

to take place during a period in which somebody is the president of the United States.

And in Clinton v. Jones, what happened was that the Supreme Court, Justice Stevens, wrote a

sublimely unsound decision saying it's okay to take a deposition

of somebody while he's in presence, even though you cannot put him to trial. And the day that came

down, I said, this is horrendous blunder. Anybody who's ever been through a deposition, either

taking it or preparing it for it, and knows, in the words of one of my own lawyer friends,

Gary Eldon, he told me when I had my deposition taken, he said, Richard, he said, you're not talking,

you're writing. So I want you to spend your entire time looking at the fingers of the court stenographer,

because whatever you say is irreplicable.

Well, Bill Clinton didn't follow that.

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