He shall have the Power to grant reprieves and pardons . . .  

These powers are remnants of the kingly powers of the life and bodies of subjects.  This would have been an opportunity for a king to show mercy upon his subjects by forgiving their crimes.  The Constitution also allows the president to issue reprieves and pardons for crimes against the United States, except in impeachment cases. A reprieve delays the penalty for a crime. A pardon frees the offender from a sentence or the possibility of a sentence. He can also pardon offences, which has the effect of striking the conviction from the person’s record.  Any restrictions on an individual because of his federal criminal conviction are lifted, unlike a simple commutation where the person would be let out of prison but would still have the conviction on his record.  Presidents usually use there last few weeks in office pardoning those they think deserve some mercy.  Ronald Reagan pardoned the owner of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner, who had been convicted of violating federal election laws in the 1970s.  George H.W. Bush pardoned former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger for any offences he might be convicted of stemming from the Iran-Contra incident of the Reagan administration.  Weinberger had not yet been convicted of anything, but Bush made the point moot.  Perhaps the most famous presidential pardon is Gerald Ford’s pardoning of Richard Nixon of any crimes Nixon may have committed in the Watergate scandal.  While this was an unpopular decision, Ford thought that this would be the best way for the nation to put the Watergate incident behind them.  Further, Nixon’s public humiliation of resigning the presidency may have been punishment enough.  As a result of Bill Clinton’s last minute pardoning of individuals, which seemed to stem from undue political and personal lobbying of Clinton, Congress considered limiting the number of pardons an outgoing president can issue, but wisely they refrained from tampering with the power.