If a prisoner runs for President and wins, do they stay in prison while elected?

Question

It's possible for a U.S. citizen to run for President while in prison, as with Eugene Debs.

Suppose a prisoner runs and wins. Let's also suppose that the crimes in for which the prisoner is serving time for are undisputed and terrible, but for some reason the public generally finds that prisoner better than any alternatives.

Now elected, does the prisoner stay in prison and attempt to fulfill their official duties from a cell (not as unfeasible at it used to be if we permit the usage of computer networking)? Can they pardon themselves and walk free? Would they go on parole for four years?

Answer 1

Whether a President can pardon themselves is somewhat open for debate. No-one has tried it, and it's not explicitly allowed or disallowed. The other and more likely occurrence would be that the vice president takes over until the president is no longer in jail, pursuant to the 25th amendment.

Presumably a vice president would pardon in such a situation, this would be the way an elected president would get out of jail. It's also possible that the president would be allowed accommodations to serve in jail or be allowed to serve their sentence in the white house. These option would require some approval from courts or prison wardens, but would likely be granted to a president. The need to always have a president would likely drive the 25th amendment option to be invoked before accommodations could be put in place.

Answer 2

This would be most exceptional. There is no precedent, and the how matters would play out would depend in the nature of the elected person, the nature of the crime, the make-up of Congress and many other details:

For example, suppose that John Brown, instead of being executed was incarcerated, and then elected to the Presidency by a (much more radical) republican college of electors. He could justifiably claim that the election was a vindication of his radical abolitionist stand and that he should be released (although as he was convicted under Virginian law, he couldn't pardon himself)

A president-elect who is found guilty between election day and the inauguration may find themselves an embarrassment to their party. If you lose the support of your own party, you don't last long in a system in which you can be removed by a super-majority vote in the Senate, as Nixon found.

The situation in which a person, incarcerated for a crime with no political aspect, is elected president seems unbelievably far fetched. In such a hypothesis, it is pure speculation as to what would happen next.

Answer 3

There are often no obstacles for the prisoner to become a candidate:

The Constitution lists only three qualifications for the Presidency — the President must be at least 35 years of age, be a natural born citizen, and must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years (source).

But, of course, being convicted felon for theft or the like harms enough the reputation to make the winning chances slim. Unless maybe imprisonment is seen as unfair and politically related. If it is about Chelsea Manning, Daniel Drayton, John C. Frémont, William Lyon Mackenzie or somebody the like, being them candidates is not completely out of place and they may collect some votes. Supporting groups are likely to do the election rally for them.

Some kinds of crime may be incompatible with the President position as happened in Lithuania, but not many.

The president is unlikely to stay in prison. The likely cases are mostly when the person has become a hero for going into prison, so if not by letter, than by sense the judgement is likely to be revised and cancelled by the higher law court, that happened to all the example persons listed. If for some reason it is legally problematic, the President has right to release a prisoner from serving the jail statement in most cases (not all). Nowhere is written one cannot apply this to himself and this would be fair, as the voters handed the mandate to him.