Federal Pardon Lawyers

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

What does a federal pardon lawyer do?

A pardon lawyer determines whether a pardon is the right instrument for the client’s actual goal, confirms when the 28 C.F.R. § 1.2 waiting period runs from, assembles the documentary record the Department’s published factors call for, and writes the petition. The petition is the whole case — there is no hearing, no legal test to satisfy, and no appeal from a denial.

Key takeaways on federal pardons

• A pardon reaches federal offenses only — plus D.C. Code offenses prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney in D.C. Superior Court.
• Generally not filed until five years after release from confinement (§ 1.2) — but “[t]he Department may grant a waiver of the five-year requirement” (JM 9-140.112).
• No hearing. “The executive clemency process is a written process” (OPA).
• No filing fee.
• The conviction stays on your record. OPA: “both the federal conviction as well as the pardon would both appear on your record.”
• A pardon does restore federal firearm rights for that conviction — but since 2026, so does a § 925(c) application, and it reaches disabilities a pardon cannot.
• You do not need a lawyer, and most applicants do not have one.

What a pardon does — in the Department’s own words

The Office of the Pardon Attorney’s description is more careful than most published summaries, and it is worth quoting rather than paraphrasing:

“A pardon is an expression of the President’s forgiveness and can be granted in recognition of the applicant’s acceptance of responsibility for the crime and established good conduct for a significant period of time after conviction or completion of sentence. It does not signify innocence. It does, however, remove civil disabilities – e.g., restrictions on the right to vote, hold state or local office, or sit on a jury – imposed because of the conviction for which pardon is sought, and should lessen the stigma arising from the conviction. It may also be helpful in obtaining licenses, bonding, or employment. Under some – but not all – circumstances, a pardon will eliminate the legal basis for removal or deportation from the United States.”

Every qualification in that passage is load-bearing. “Does not signify innocence.” “Should lessen the stigma.” “May also be helpful.” “Under some – but not all – circumstances.”

The goal	Does a pardon achieve it?	The precise answer
Restore the right to vote, hold office, serve on a jury	Yes, for disabilities imposed because of that conviction	And note: OPA says some states restore these rights themselves “even if the disqualifying felony conviction was incurred in federal court” — a pardon may not be the only route
Restore federal firearm rights	Yes, for the disability flowing from that federal conviction	But not a disability from any other source, and since 2026 there is a direct route under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c)
Clear the criminal record	No	OPA: “the pardoned offense would not be removed from your criminal record. Instead, both the federal conviction as well as the pardon would both appear on your record”
Establish innocence	No	OPA: “It does not signify innocence.” And Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915): a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt”
Remove a licensing or bonding bar	Often, where the bar is imposed by law	JM 9-140.112 treats “removal of a bar to licensure or bonding” as a persuasive need
Prevent removal or deportation	Sometimes	“Under some – but not all – circumstances.” This is immigration law and needs immigration counsel
Get money back	No	Knote v. United States, 95 U.S. 149 (1877): a pardon “does not make amends for the past” and cannot reach funds already in the Treasury
Overturn the conviction	No	That is an appeal or a motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255

The full treatment of what survives a pardon is at what a pardon does not do.

The five-year rule, and the waiver most people never hear about

28 C.F.R. § 1.2 provides that no pardon petition “should be filed until the expiration of a waiting period of at least five years after the date of the release of the petitioner from confinement or, in case no prison sentence was imposed, until the expiration of a period of at least five years after the date of the conviction,” and that “[g]enerally, no petition should be submitted by a person who is on probation, parole, or supervised release.”

Three points that decide whether a petition is filable.

The clock starts at release, not sentencing. Where a prison term was served, the five years run from release from confinement. Where none was imposed, they run from the conviction date. Applicants miscount this constantly.

Supervision is a separate obstacle. Someone released six years ago but still on supervised release faces the “generally, no petition” instruction even though the five years have run.

It can be waived. The Justice Manual states: “The Department may grant a waiver of the five-year requirement.” The regulation itself does not mention a waiver, which is why almost nobody knows to ask. A waiver request has to justify itself on the facts — the same factors that govern the petition, compressed into a reason the ordinary interval should not apply here.

And the constitutional footnote: § 1.11 provides that the regulations “are advisory only,” “create no enforceable rights,” and do not “restrict the authority granted to the President under Article II, section 2.”

What the Department weighs

JM 9-140.112 publishes five factors, and the baseline sets the tone: “a pardon is granted on the basis of the petitioner’s demonstrated good conduct for a substantial period of time after conviction and service of sentence.”

1. Post-conviction conduct, character, and reputation. The FBI investigation “focuses on the petitioner’s financial and employment stability, responsibility toward family, reputation in the community, participation in community service, charitable or other meritorious activities and, if applicable, military record” — and “serves to verify the petitioner’s responses in the pardon application.”
2. Seriousness and relative recentness of the offense. For a serious offense, “a suitable length of time should have elapsed in order to avoid denigrating the seriousness of the offense.”
3. Acceptance of responsibility, remorse, and atonement. “A petitioner should be genuinely desirous of forgiveness rather than vindication,” and an “attempt to minimize or rationalize culpability does not advance the case.” Innocence claims “bear a formidable burden of persuasion.”
4. Need for relief. A specific bar to licensure or bonding “may make an otherwise marginal case sufficiently compelling.”
5. Official recommendations and reports — the U.S. Attorney’s views carry “considerable weight,” and the sentencing judge is routinely asked.

The step-by-step application is at how to get a presidential pardon.

Where counsel actually changes the outcome — and where it does not

The Office of the Pardon Attorney says a lawyer is not required and that most applicants do not have one. That is true, and it should shape how anyone thinks about this decision. Here is the honest division.

Where counsel adds little. A straightforward case — one old, non-serious federal conviction; sentence long completed; restitution paid; a stable decade behind you; no other convictions; no immigration issue — is a case where the forms are completable and OPA will tell you if something is missing. Paying for help you do not need is not a good use of money you may need for records.

Where counsel changes the outcome.

Situation	Why it matters
The goal is not actually a pardon	If the real objective is firearm rights, a § 925(c) application may fit better and move faster. If it is a clean record, no pardon delivers one. If it is innocence, clemency is the wrong forum. Choosing the instrument is the highest-value decision in the case
The timing is uncertain	Three possible start dates, a supervision bar, and an unadvertised waiver. Getting this wrong wastes a filing
Immigration consequences are in play	A pardon eliminates the legal basis for removal “[u]nder some – but not all – circumstances.” That sentence needs a lawyer behind it
A serious offense, or any notoriety	Factor two directs attention to the effect of a pardon “on law enforcement interests or upon the general public,” and to victim impact
There is anything to explain	Subsequent arrests, an unpaid balance, a gap in employment. Volunteering and explaining beats being found out by the investigation
The instinct is to argue innocence	The single most common way petitions are lost. Someone has to say so before it is written
Restitution is unresolved	Factor three names it. Structuring and documenting good-faith payment takes time and changes the picture
The waiver is worth requesting	It exists, it is not in the regulation, and it must be argued

What counsel cannot do. Promise a result, get a hearing (there are none), obtain reasons for a denial (none are given), appeal one, or move a petition up a queue. Anyone suggesting otherwise is describing a process that does not exist. What counsel can do is make sure the petition is complete, accurate, well-documented, and asking for the right thing — which is the only variable anyone on your side of the process controls.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: The most useful hour in a pardon matter is usually the first one, and it frequently ends with advice that costs the client nothing further. People arrive certain they need a pardon, and about a third of the time the conversation ends somewhere else — the record they want cleared cannot be cleared by anyone, the firearm right they want back has a faster route since 2026, or the five years have not actually run because supervision is still in place. The Department’s own FAQ tells people they can file without a lawyer. What it cannot tell them is whether they are filing for the right thing.

How long it takes, and what happens while you wait

No provision of the regulations sets a deadline for any step, and the Office of the Pardon Attorney is candid about the consequence: “While both the Department of Justice and the President make every effort to resolve clemency applications in a timely manner, there is no guarantee that an application submitted during an administration will be decided by that President.”

Four things are true during the wait, and they are more reassuring than they sound.

The petition does not lapse. OPA: “If the outgoing President does not reach a decision before the end of his elected term, the clemency application will remain open until resolved by a later President.” No refiling is needed, and the Justice Manual says the same: a pending petition “will remain open and active until the incoming president reaches a decision.”

You can check on it. The Department maintains a clemency case status locator at justice.gov/pardon/search-clemency-case-status. OPA also notes that if an application “remains pending, you do NOT need to submit a new application form.”

You can keep adding to it. “[Y]ou may provide us with updated information at any time by mail or email . . . Any new information you send to us will be added to your existing casefile and considered in the review process.” Because there is no hearing, this is the only mechanism for putting new material in front of the decisionmaker, and OPA “strongly suggest[s]” that anything you want considered be submitted in writing.

Ignoring correspondence closes the file. Among the situations in which a petition is closed without a presidential decision, OPA lists an applicant who “repeatedly fails to respond to a request by the Pardon Attorney for required information.” Keep an address current.

One practical caution on submissions: OPA asks for copies rather than originals, “because the record will be added to the applicant’s executive clemency file,” and states that it “cannot make information recorded on digital media part of an applicant’s file and cannot access information sent to us through a file-sharing service.” Paper, or email attachments in PDF.

What it costs

The government charges nothing. There is no filing fee for a clemency petition, and forms are available from the Office of the Pardon Attorney at no cost.

Real costs are the ordinary ones: certified court records, documentation of restitution status, criminal history reports where needed, and — if you retain counsel — legal fees, which depend on the volume and age of the record and are not quoted on a website.

If anyone tells you the government charges a fee, or that paying will accelerate a decision, treat it as a warning sign. Nothing in the regulations sets a decision deadline, so nothing can be paid to shorten one.

Note too what OPA says about incomplete filings, because it changes the risk calculus for anyone deciding whether to file alone: “If a pardon applicant submits an application that is incomplete or does not sufficiently answer the questions posed, the Pardon Attorney will contact the applicant and explain what additional information is required.” An incomplete application is not silently rejected. What OPA cannot do is give legal advice, and it says so.

If firearm rights are the actual goal

This changed in August 2026, and OPA now says so in its own FAQ.

“Is a presidential pardon the only way a person convicted of a federal felony offense can regain his federal firearms rights? No. A federal pardon does restore a person’s federal firearms rights, but also, under 18 U.S.C. § 925(c), the Attorney General can restore the federal firearms rights of a person who is prohibited from owning a firearm under federal law.”

The § 925(c) route reaches all nine prohibited-person categories under § 922(g) — including several a pardon cannot touch — and public applications open November 4, 2026, capped at the first 5,000 applicants. OPA adds the necessary caution: a person restored “either through pardon or under the § 925(c) process, should consult with their state, territorial, or tribal authorities to learn more about whether he can possess firearms under the laws where he lives.”

See gun rights restoration and federal firearm rights restoration.

Where to go next on filing a pardon petition

• How to file — how to get a presidential pardon
• What a presidential pardon is — what is a presidential pardon
• What a pardon does not do — what a pardon does not do
• Pardon compared to expungement — pardon vs expungement
• The scope of the power — pardon power
• After a denial — clemency denied what next
• The clemency hub — clemency lawyers

The nineteenth-century line of cases, in order

The modern law of the federal pardon rests on four decisions that were decided across sixty years and that are best read as a sequence, because each one narrows or qualifies the one before it. Lawyers cite them individually; the shape only appears when they are put in order.

Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 333 (1867), is the broad statement — the pardon power is unlimited except in cases of impeachment, it may be exercised at any time after the offense is committed, and Congress cannot restrict it. Garland is the source of the expansive language quoted in nearly every pardon brief since.

Knote v. United States, 95 U.S. 149 (1877), supplies the first serious limit. A pardon does not restore property or money that has already vested in third parties or been paid into the Treasury. The pardon operates prospectively on the consequences of the conviction; it does not run the clock backward on completed transactions. Knote is why “as if the offense had never been committed” is a description of legal status going forward, not a description of history.

Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915), adds the consent requirement: a pardon must be accepted, and it may be rejected. The Court’s reasoning — that a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt” and acceptance “a confession of it” — is the origin of the persistent and only half-correct idea that taking a pardon is an admission. It is not an adjudication of guilt; it is the Court’s account of why a person must be free to refuse one.

Biddle v. Perovich, 274 U.S. 480 (1927), then substantially rethinks Burdick’s premise. Holmes reframed clemency as “part of the constitutional scheme” rather than a private act of grace, and held that a commutation from death to life imprisonment did not require the prisoner’s consent. Read together, the pair leaves a workable rule: a full pardon requires acceptance; a commutation, which merely substitutes a lesser penalty, does not.

The practical residue for an applicant is small but real. Garland says the power is broad enough to reach your case. Knote says do not expect money back. Burdick says you will have to accept the grant. And Biddle says the guilt-confession framing is weaker than it sounds — a point worth having ready when a client hesitates over whether accepting a pardon concedes something they do not want to concede.

Related reading on the pardon power and process

For the constitutional architecture in more depth, see presidential pardon power; for the plain-language version, what is a presidential pardon and what does clemency mean.

On process: how to get a presidential pardon covers the application, federal pardons covers how the petition moves through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, and clemency denied, what next covers reapplication. On limits: what a pardon does not do and pardon vs expungement.

If firearm rights are the object, a pardon is one of two federal routes and no longer the faster one — see federal firearm rights restoration and, for the independent state bar, firearm rights restoration by state.

Why work with Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm founded in 2019, running a national federal practice on an intentionally small caseload. Elizabeth Franklin-Best has more than 20 years of federal and appellate criminal defense experience and is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals — every regional circuit (1st–11th) plus the D.C. Circuit. She has handled more than 330 federal proceedings, over 100 of them appeals, with sixteen published decisions as counsel of record, and has been admitted pro hac vice in federal courts from Montana to Florida. She is recognized by Best Lawyers in America 2026 for Appellate Practice and by Chambers USA 2026 for Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations, was named South Carolina Public Defender of the Year in 2010, and is the author of Reversing Your Criminal Conviction: Develop Your Winning Strategy (2023).

Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, the firm’s Managing Director, is the author of the Federal Prison Handbook and four other books on the federal system and serves as Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Defense Center. Legal work on any matter is handled by the firm’s attorneys.

A pardon petition is a document with no legal test to satisfy, read by the office that prosecuted you, and verified by the FBI. That is a records-and-writing problem, and it is the same discipline as an appellate brief.

Offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, serving clients nationwide. No outcome can be promised, and this page is general information rather than legal advice.

Schedule a consultation

To find out whether a pardon fits your goal, and whether your waiting period has run, schedule a consultation or call (843) 620-1100.

Frequently Asked Questions About Federal Pardons

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026