Rare was basically a second party developer back in those days. They were given access to internal tools from Nintendo, a direct hotline for help, hell they even developed Nintendo IPs, which was unheard of for a western developer and is still rare even today
If you’re referring to Burdick, then you have it backwards. Burdick explicitly states that a pardon carries an “imputation of guilt” and that accepting the pardon is “a confession to it”.