The courts do not have authority to revise the Constitution in the formal amendment processes, with no authority delegated to them to improve upon or create an altered version of the Constitution, either. For each change the courts have made to the Constitution, imagine they have stapled their opinions to the back of the document, so that you can understand how they ruled what “pardon” means throughout various points in our history.
Overall, the courts granting themselves the power to revise the definition of a word “to coincide with the times” is a terrible idea, as the times we live in are despotic. Despots have no recourse from the law, the Constitution, or their opponents; they are free to exercise illegitimate and ultimate authority that is unchecked. ‘Despot’ was defined in 1803, and Thomas Jefferson was correct to use that verbiage.
He understood that the only way the “Checks and Balances” of the three branches of government are effective is if, in fact, they aren’t working together as a small group of elites who are manipulating our laws and governmental acts to benefit themselves. So, if the courts grant themselves additional powers to amend our Constitution that go unchecked by the legislature, who then pass laws that grant immunity to themselves in various ways, and an Executive that has full immunity and can grant people within its administration pardons for criminal acts committed for that President’s administration — and once again when those questionable immunities are brought before the courts, we are forced to fall back to a judiciary that not only enshrines these absurdities into law, but then reinterprets them to expand these powers and immunities — we have a closed loop of a small group of elites working together to benefit themselves at the cost of personal and public sovereignty.
When this happens, the government can no longer be held accountable for crimes against its own people, only giving the semblance of a democracy when, in fact, the government is criminal and corrupt.
We call this a Banana Republic.
I, for one, am saddened to see America become a despotic Banana Republic based on the idea that we needed to align our founding documents with the modern times of corruption and lack of accountability in government. That excuse is how we’ve gotten to the point where a questionably installed president can grant what amounts to temporary immunity to criminal actors within his own administration — using the redefining of pardons by the courts — while he enjoys absolute immunity as a president (as defined by the courts). In this way, the law passed by the legislature (possible opponents of corruption) and the judiciary that executes it (who have decided they are also part legislature) is unable to reach the criminals because it has been revised in our Constitution by the very people breaking the law who unilaterally granted themselves this power outside of the amendment process (namely, the Supreme Court themselves).
This hardly seems what was envisioned for the greatest country of all time. But maybe we were being duped by inside actors who looked forward to installing illegal acts of the court as a multi-century tradition, and this is why they left the holes and gaps purposefully in our founding documents… for the pure want of power and money (shocking for a human being to do, I know).
Maybe this is why Benjamin Franklin wondered if we could keep a Republic? Maybe he knew that once precedent set by courts was acted upon by one administration that other administrations would also be able to act upon it? Maybe he knew there was already a plan through the courts to make the Constitution illusory and forever unattainable without revolutionary disruptions?
Regardless of why Franklin quipped if we could “keep” a Republic form of government, those opposing Trump’s pardons can thank Biden for throwing open the door to despotism and leading the entire nation into treacherous times.