A federal judge in Washington D.C. has reversed an earlier decision and ordered the U.S. government to return mandatory assessments and restitution payments made by two individuals whose convictions related to the January 6th Capitol riot were recently vacated due to presidential pardons. The ruling centers on a key legal distinction: while a pardon itself doesn’t erase past penalties, the subsequent vacating of the conviction that resulted from the pardon does create a legal obligation for the government to return any money exacted under that now-voided judgment.
Cynthia Ballenger and her husband, Christopher Price, were among those convicted of several misdemeanors stemming from their participation in the January 6, 2021, events at the U.S. Capitol. Following their convictions, the Court sentenced them to brief prison terms and ordered them to pay a mandatory $70 assessment, plus $500 in restitution to the Architect of the Capitol. Both defendants paid these fines.
The Pardon and the Vacatur
The defendants appealed their convictions. However, while those appeals were pending, President Donald Trump issued a sweeping pardon for individuals convicted of offenses related to the January 6th events. This pardon rendered the defendants’ appeals moot, meaning the appellate court could no longer rule on the merits of their cases.
When an appeal is mooted by a pardon, the standard procedure in the D.C. Circuit is for the appellate court to vacate the underlying conviction and sentence, effectively dismissing the case. This is exactly what happened here.
Initially, when Ballenger and Price asked this trial court to order a refund of the payments they had already made, the Court denied the request. Now, in a motion for reconsideration, the defendants argued that the Court failed to adequately consider the legal effect of the *vacatur*—the wiping clean of the conviction—rather than just the pardon itself.
Vacatur Wipes the Slate Clean
In reconsidering the matter, Chief Judge James E. Boasberg concluded that the government had no legal basis to retain the funds once the order compelling payment was vacated.
The opinion sharply distinguished between the effect of a pardon and the effect of a vacatur. Citing established precedent, the Court noted that a pardon offers prospective relief; it doesn’t look backward to undo fines or prison time already served. A pardon does not even expunge the conviction itself.
However, the vacatur—which occurred because the pardon halted the appellate process prematurely—is different. The Court explained that vacated court orders are treated as void *ab initio*, meaning the law acts as if the order never existed.
“When that order was vacated, the legal basis for holding Defendants’ money vanished,” the opinion stated. This places defendants whose convictions are vacated in the same legal position as someone who was never convicted. Since the government’s only right to the money stemmed from the now-vacated judgment, that right disappeared.
The Court drew an analogy to cases where defendants die while their appeals are pending. In those situations, the resulting vacatur also entitles the deceased defendant’s estate to a refund of fines and assessments, because the conviction was never fully tested on appeal. The Court found that a pardon-induced vacatur is legally equivalent to a death-induced vacatur: in both scenarios, the conviction’s merits were never resolved by the appellate system.
Overcoming Constitutional Hurdles
The Court then addressed two major potential roadblocks to ordering the refund: the Appropriations Clause and the doctrine of sovereign immunity.
The Appropriations Clause Challenge: The government cannot spend money not explicitly authorized by Congress (the Appropriations Clause). Historically, courts in the District of Columbia had ruled that absent a specific statute, they could not order refunds of criminal penalties already paid into the Treasury.
Judge Boasberg disagreed, finding an existing mechanism. He reasoned that when a court orders a government entity to return funds under a vacated judgment, that order itself becomes a *judgment* against the United States. This new judgment is then covered by 31 U.S.C. § 1304, which appropriates funds to pay final judgments against the U.S. government. The Court found that its inherent equitable power—developed over centuries to restore parties to their pre-judgment positions when a judgment is reversed—allows it to issue the initial order to return the money, which in turn unlocks the congressional appropriation for payment.
Sovereign Immunity: The doctrine of sovereign immunity generally prevents private parties from suing the federal government without its consent. While the government hadn’t raised this defense, the Court raised it on its own initiative (sua sponte).
The Court ultimately found that sovereign immunity did not bar the refund. Because the entire criminal proceeding—prosecution, conviction, appeal, and vacatur—was initiated by the government, ordering the repayment is simply “an incidental consequence of the vacatur.” Since the Court had the power to order the defendants to pay the penalties in the first place, it retains the inherent power to undo that order when the basis for it is legally erased.
In conclusion, the Court ruled that Ballenger and Price have a substantive right to the return of their payments, and the judicial mechanism exists to enforce that right without violating constitutional constraints. A separate order directing the government to issue the refund was set to follow immediately.