Tag: Obama

White House escort insults and humiliates people with a record

June 25, 2015 President Barack Obama 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Obama, I write to you as a national leader, criminal justice reform advocate, and founder of JustLeadershipUSA, a bold new organization dedicated to cutting the US correctional population in half by 2030 on the guiding principle that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution. Recently, I had the honor of participating in a strategic planning initiative that addressed both the intersection of, and possible remedies to, the issues of gun violence, policing, and mass incarceration in the United States.  On Wednesday, June 17, 2015, George Washington University Law School served as host to a select group of civil rights and religious leaders, scholars, elected officials, law enforcement officials and foundation officers brought together by The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and The Joyce Foundation. Our day culminated with an invitation to join members of your domestic policy staff in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building for a discussion about their work on these issues. A day of thoughtful and inspired dialogue, however, quickly turned into one of needless humiliation and stigma for me. As each of my colleagues received green passes granting […]

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Pardon Attorney says clock is ticking on Obama clemency initiative

The Justice Department is urging lawyers for federal prisoners to move quickly to file clemency petitions for their clients, lest the clock run out before the end of the President’s term.   U.S. Pardon Attorney Deborah Leff told volunteer lawyers in a video seminar last week that petitions not submitted until Obama’s final year may not be considered, at least by him.  As reported by Greg Korte of USA Today, Leff suggested that lawyers might be spending too much time briefing cases, and she encouraged them to file even if they have not been able to obtain all documents. “While I greatly admire your legal skills, this is not the time to prepare a treatise of hundreds of pages,” she told the lawyers.

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Should clemency substitute for the rule of law? “A Modest Proposal” says no

We cross-post a recent comment about the Obama clemency initiative from Professor Doug Berman’s Sentencing Law and Policy blog because it proposes to supplement the constitutional pardon power with a relief mechanism built into the legal system (there, a sentence reduction by the court rather than presidential commutation).  It reflects the institutional and practical concerns of Enlightenment philosopher Cesare Beccaria, who proposed in 1764 that Clemency is a virtue which belongs to the legislator, and not to the executor of the laws; a virtue which ought to shine in the code, and not in private judgment. Beccaria’s view that clemency should “shine in the code” has a special resonance where collateral consequences are concerned since pardons have become so rare in recent years. Indeed, Judge John Gleeson might have invoked Beccaria when he expunged the conviction of a woman who was unable to find employment because of her criminal record.  We intend to keep arguing in this space for a statutory restoration remedy for the federal system, whatever form it may take.   

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Obama clemency process reportedly “more backlogged than it was before”

USA Today reports that unexpected administrative complications continue to delay the clemency initiative launched by the Obama administration last year.  More than a year after the Justice Department sought assistance from private organizations in identifying federal prisoners deserving of sentence commutation, that ancillary process has submitted only 31 cases for favorable presidential action.  In light of the fact that more than 1500 volunteer lawyers have been working since last fall on cases assigned by Clemency Project 2014, this modest number is surprising. Lawyers involved in the effort say the year-old clemency initiative has been hampered by the complexity of the cases and questions about the eligibility criteria, which may still be too strict to help most of the prison population. The result is a system that appears even more backlogged than it was before the initiative began.

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27 Senators urge Obama to “ban the box” in federal hiring

A group of 27 U.S. Senators have written to President Obama urging him to implement “fair chance” hiring in federal government employment.   The Senators — all Democrats, led by Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) — asked the President to issue an executive order directing federal agencies and contractors to postpone inquiry into criminal records until a later point in the hiring process.  The so-called ban-the-box movement in the states has been gaining steam and has been largely bipartisan, with executive orders issued most recently in Georgia and Vermont.  Some of the largest employers in the country, including Walmart, Target, Home Depot and Koch Industries have also stopped asking about prior convictions at the beginning of the job application process. The press release and letter are here.  A January 2015 report from the National Employment Law Project suggests that the details of a presidential executive order may be difficult to work out, given the decentralized nature of federal hiring and the applicability of formal background check requirements to a substantial number of federally-funded jobs.  

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