The draconian penalties that Hunter Biden escaped affect many people whose fathers cannot save them.
« Hunter was singled out only because he is my son », Joe Biden said on Sunday, when he issued a pardon that saved Hunter Biden from serving time for his gun and tax crimes. That much was accurate, but not in the way the president meant.
Naked nepotism allowed Hunter Biden to avoid the consequences of a criminal justice system that punishes people for conduct that violates no one’s rights and compounds that punishment when they demand the trial to which they are entitled under the Sixth Amendment. While the pardon was undeniably hypocritical, those injustices are real, and they affect many people who lack the political connections to escape them.
Last June, a federal jury convicted Hunter Biden of three felonies based on his 2018 purchase of a revolver, which was illegal because he was a crack cocaine user. The case sits at the intersection of two policies that punish people for actions that are not inherently criminal.
As the philosopher Douglas Husak has observed, drug and gun possession laws forbid « inchoate offenses », which involve conduct that is not necessarily harmful. They « do not proscribe harm itself », Husak notes, « but rather the possibility of harm—a possibility that need not (and typically does not) materialize when the offense is committed.
