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Can't say I disagree.Thank you. That adequately clarifies what avenue you were pursuing.
I asked a friend what you may have been talking about. The explanation I got comports with what's in the DB article, but with a bit of additional detail:
- The dismissal procedure pertains only to matters that are in process at the time of the pardon's issue.
- Should a jurisdictionally valid pardon come about, the judge has no discretion as goes the case's dismissal; he can't decide not to dismiss the matter. The judge would himself be violating the law were he not to dismiss the case. Yes, the dismissal of the matter is procedural, but it's literally nothing other than "dotting an eye and crossing a tee" so the jurisprudencial administrative process stops.
If the judge didn't dismiss the matter, it'd just leave an "unclosed loop" in the process and documentation of the matter. Conceivably, someone could sometime later discover the paperwork re: the case and say, "Oh, we have this unresolved matter. Go get that defendant so we can resolve this." The defendant would be found, s/he'd appear in court with his pardon document (or refer to it), and the judge would then confirm the existence of the pardon and, in turn, dismiss the matter and apologize for the court's administrative laxity.- The/a prosecutor can, as noted in the DB article, do something: challenge the pardon. Whether that challenge results in the pardon's vacation is a different matter, but unless and until it does, the pardon stands.
As a practical matter, it'd take "smoking gun" grade evidence (or near as makes no difference) for such a challenge to prevail. The existence of and ability to obtain such evidence would never before have even been something one could construe as an existential plausibility. That may not be the case with Trump, but, until the Mueller report arrives, we won't really have a fair idea of how existentially plausible, if at all, such be.
And, yes, as I stated to CA, their would have to be multiple smoking guns.