Why Pardoning for Segregation-Era Law Violations is Morally Wrong

I sternly object to the mere concept of the Rosa Parks Law as written in Tennessee and other states (for further information see http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070518/NEWS01/705180402). The notion that individuals who have been convicted under an unconstitutional law should have to seek pardons from the state for committing criminal violations is ridiculous. A pardon is granted by the state to FORGIVE a person of committing a CRIME. Yet it should be clear that in this case, everything is backwards. When a law is struck down as unconstitutional, it should be the STATE that seeks FORGIVENESS, NOT THE VICTIM OF THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL LAW! No one can rightly be convicted of a crime that is unconstitutional. Therefore, all such violations of law should have been stricken from the books AUTOMATICALLY once it is established that the reason for the conviction was the exercising of a person's constitutional rights. It is the ultimate indignity to tell those who have been wronged by the state that they should seek forgiveness from the state for doing something that they had every right to do in the first place. Tell Tennessee and other states that pardons are NOT acceptable. Instead, victims of these laws should be granted a letter of apology and an automatic expulsion from their records of any such transgressions of 'law' once it is demonstrated that the original conviction was based on an unconstitutional restraint of a person's basic civil rights. That is the only reasonable thing to do.

Of course, to ensure that the disorderly conduct or other such 'crime' that was originally charged is in fact a civil rights violation, it is necessary to have individuals apply to the state. After all, the original charge may be valid for other reasons, so we have to be certain of its applicability but for the state to issue a pardon instead of an apology has the whole concept backwards.