WASHINGTON − A presidential pardon?
No thanks, said Glenn Brooks, who was convicted for his role in theJan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He would rather try to clear his name through the courts than accept a pardon fromPresident Donald Trump.
TheSupreme Courton March 9 declined to give Brooks a chance to do that.
Lower courts had canceled Brooks' conviction for entering the Capitol and dismissed his appeal as no longer relevant after Trump last yearpardonednearly 1,600 people charged in the 2021 riot.
More:Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by Trump convicted of child sexual abuse
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But Brooks, a home remodeling contractor and a "deeply religious man," argued he has the right to try to fully exonerate himself.
"A forced pardon operates as a compelled confession, branding the individual with guilt and stripping him of his chosen appellate forum," Brooks' lawyerstold the Supreme Court.
His lawyers also said the issue is "of profound national importance given the increased use of presidential pardons in politically sensitive cases."
The Department of Justice waived its right to respond to Brooks'Supreme Courtappeal.
Brooks, who traveled to Washington from Huntington Beach, California, to support Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, is one of a few people who found their pardons from Trump unpalatable for one reason or another.
'The worst day of my life'
Pamela Hemphill, aformer Trump supporterwho served two months in prison for storming the Capitol, formally rejected thepresident's pardon.
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But, unlike Brooks, Hemphill had pleaded guilty to joining the angry mob of protesters.
The senior citizen said she turned down the pardon because she wanted to be honest.
"How could I live my life knowing that I was guilty and then I took that pardon?" shepreviously said. "It's kind of like a message that it was OK that day − it was not OK that day. That was the worst day of my life."
More:Pamela Hemphill, who rejected her Jan. 6 pardon, says 'it was not OK that day'
Brooks, by contrast, fought the four misdemeanors he was charged with for entering the Capitol and wants the chance to overturn his conviction. He argues that the government lacked sufficient evidence, particularly that Brooks knew what he was doing was a crime.
Member of his prayer group contacted FBI
Brooks was arrested after a fellow member of his prayer group told the FBI that Brooks had texted fellow church members photos of himself inside the Capitol. Security cameras showed Brooks, wearing a knit "Trump" hat, climbing through a broken window on the Senate side of the Capitol.
"Although he now recognizes entering the building was not appropriate and certainly entering through a window was inappropriate, at the time, he was following the crowd and walking through a window was not abnormal to him, as he worked on many construction sites in the past," an attorney for Brooks wrote in a filing.
After a jury convicted Brooks in 2024, he was sentenced to six months in prison and ordered to pay $500 in restitution and a $2,000 fine.
Forcibly removed from prison for a pardon he didn't want
Near the end of his sentence, Brooks said, he was "forcibly awakened and removed from prison" despite his refusal to accept Trump's pardon.
"By forcibly imposing a pardon – an instrument historically associated with mercy for the guilty – the government conscripts the defendant into a narrative of culpability," his lawyers told the Supreme Court, "and cuts off the very process that could correct the record."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:A Jan. 6 rioter doesn't want Trump's pardon. Supreme Court weighs in.