State charges included kidnapping, first-degree burglary and false imprisonment of husband of Nancy Pelosi

The man who was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for attacking the husband of Nancy Pelosi with a hammer in their California home was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole following a separate state trial.

A San Francisco jury in June found David DePape guilty of charges including aggravated kidnapping, first-degree burglary and false imprisonment of an elder.

Before issuing the sentence, Judge Harry Dorfman dismissed arguments from DePape’s attorneys that he be granted a new trial for the 2022 attack against Paul Pelosi, who was 82 years old at the time.

“It’s my intention that Mr DePape will never get out of prison, he can never be paroled,” Dorfman said while handing out the punishment.

  • athairmor@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    38
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    6 days ago

    Life sentence is from the state charges. President can’t pardon that. But, yeah, he’ll pardon the federal charges if he gets the chance.

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      6 days ago

      Will he? He said he’d pardon a lot of people when he was still able and never did. He only cares about people with power or fame, not nobodies like this guy.

      • athairmor@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 days ago

        I guess it depends on whether he needs to rile his base. The GOP already has them frothing at the name “Pelosi”. He might do it as an intimidation tactic. Hopefully, we never find out because he never gets the chance.

      • candybrie@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 days ago

        The immunity thing only protects the president from criminal prosecution; it doesn’t grant them additional powers if they say it’s official. Attempting to pardon people you didn’t have the authority to pardon is not a criminal act. He’d have to go hold a gun to the governor to get that pardon signed or similar.

    • zephorah@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      6 days ago

      That does not sound real. If a presidential power to pardon is unlimited except in the case of impeachment, why would that matter? Even Congress can’t stop it.