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 them immediate access, I received a pink ID bearing the label: “Needs Escort.” Its inspiration was quickly and unsurprisingly confirmed: anyone with a criminal conviction requires an escort at all times on the White House grounds. The staggering symbolism of the ordeal was not lost on me, Mr. President. In a country where 65 million people have a criminal record on file, being selectively barred from entering the White House for a discussion about those very same people was as insulting as it was indicative of the broader problem. Along with millions of others, I have watched with tremendous pride and optimism as your administration has stated that our carceral policies are patently counterproductive. Further, those policies disproportionately target communities of color, running roughshod over our declared principles of justice, fairness, and proportionality in the process. I submit to you that the treatment I received as an invited White House guest, and by extension all others with prior convictions, further erodes the life of those principles. In your letters of commutation you have concluded, “Remember that you have the capacity to make good choices. By doing so, you will affect not only your own life, but those close to you. You will also influence, through your example, the possibility that others in your circumstances get their own second chance in the future.” This counsel is as applicable to our nation’s corridors of power as it is to our most travailed citizens. The work of the mature democracy is to organize itself in such a way that best enables that process without undue hardship. Along my journey to national advocacy, I’ve disabused myself of several of our national delusions, the most poignant being the myth of the voiceless masses who require the spokesmanship of a noble and courageous few. I never met any of the alleged voiceless during my incarceration, only the deliberately silenced. In the corridors of our nation’s highest office, I found my voice and my person restricted in an agonizingly similar way to that which I encountered in prison. Rather than being debilitated, I walked away further emboldened and hopeful that when guided by a commitment to justice, power might listen. There is strong evidence to believe that is the case. In your March interview with David Simon you stated rightfully: “Part of the challenge is going to be making sure, number one, that we humanize what so often on the local news is just a bunch of shadowy characters and tell their stories.” There is no expression capable of fully capturing how uplifting these remarks are for millions of our country’s men and women. In the spirit of that conviction, I humbly request a meeting with myself and a select group of other formerly incarcerated leaders at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Glenn E. Martin Founder and President JustLeadershipUSA     Read more

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. James Felman, a Tampa lawyer who represents the American Bar Association on the Steering Committee of Clemency Project 2014, told the volunteers they ought to disclose both the strengths and weaknesses of a client’s case: “Aggressive lawyering is not necessarily going to pay off.” I think that there is a traditional sense that when you represent a client, your job is to make the best argument for relief you can possibly make no matter what.  Understand that here, this is not a court case; clemency is a grace.  And there is an utmost need for candor.   They’re not going to grant clemency to someone who does not meet the criteria.  So you may make the best argument you could make, but please understand that, from our perspective, time spent making a weak argument for an undeserving client is time that we can’t get you to spend making a good argument for a deserving client.  And we have many many clients that we have not yet assigned. Other members of the Clemency Project 2014 Steering Committee also emphasized the need for speed and full disclosure.  Norman Reimer, Executive Director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told lawyers that “The clock is ticking,” and that “Only you volunteers can help us beat the clock.”  Mary Price, General Counsel of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, advised that lawyers must be candid in briefing the project about their client’s case: “We have to know if we have bad facts.” Margaret Love, a Washington attorney who had Leff’s job in the Clinton administration, said she worries that an emphasis on the volume and speed of cases could compromise the ability of attorneys to make the best argument for their clients. “What I heard was hurry up, hurry up, deliver as many cases as quickly as you possibly can,” she said. “If it’s true that there were only 31 cases submitted by the project by the end of May, that’s surprising given the number of lawyers they have working on them.” While Obama’s 43 commutations put him ahead of the pace of presidents since Richard Nixon as far as sentence reductions are concerned, he has still acted favorably in only a small percentage of cases filed with the Justice Department: Thus far, President Obama has granted less than 0.3% of commutation petitions during his presidency, which has seen a record 16,911 petitions through May. Another 44% were denied, 12% were closed for other reasons, and 56% remain pending. Obama has said he wants that to change. “I think what you’ll see is not only me exercising that pardon power and clemency power more aggressively for people who meet the criteria — nonviolent crimes, have served already a long period of time, have shown that they’re rehabilitated,” he said in a March interview with the Huffington Post. Read more

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.    Sentencing Law and Policy Friday June 5, 2015 Former Pardon Attorney: “A Modest Proposal to Expedite the Administration’s Clemency Initiative” Regular readers know I have given lots of space this week to coverage and criticism of federal clemency efforts.  I am pleased to continue now with a guest post via former Pardon Attorney Margaret Love, which she sent my way under the title “A Modest Proposal to Expedite the Administration’s Clemency Initiative”: Mark Osler’s post in this space on June 4 (“Another View on Clemency Project 2014”) recounts his unsuccessful effort several years ago to persuade the Administration to establish a presidential commission, similar to the one that handled cases of Vietnam draft evaders and deserters during the Ford Administration, to review and recommend clemency relief for the thousands of prisoners serving prison sentences imposed more than a decade ago that are now generally considered far too severe.  He suggests that the reason the Administration chose not to follow this path relates to its doubt that Congress would fund such an effort. Instead, the Justice Department chose to address the problem of excessive sentences by asking a consortium of private organizations to manage it through the volunteer efforts of the private bar. We will never know whether Professor Osler’s commission idea would have worked, or whether lack of funding was the reason it was rejected.  But it does appear that the structure put in place instead to manage the Administration’s clemency initiative has (in his words) “struggled with the overwhelming number of cases (over 30,000) referred to it.” It did not help that the Administrative Office for U.S. Courts sharply limited the role that Federal Public Defender Organizations could play in the clemency initiative, by declaring that CJA funds could not be spent on clemency representations.  Many, including myself, believe that the sentencing expertise and advocacy of the Federal Defenders is critical to implementing the sort of large scale program of sentence reduction the Administration evidently had in mind. But there is another approach that might have been taken by the Administration that would have ensured a central role for the Federal Defenders.  This approach, which might still be taken, would make extraordinary sentence reduction the responsibility of the federal courts as well as of the President.  Bringing cases back to court would not require new legislation or new funds, since there is already on the books a judicial sentence reduction authority that could achieve the same result as executive clemency, through court proceedings where CJA appointments are clearly authorized.  And, because a large scale sentence reduction program is already underway in the federal courts, economies of scale are possible. Specifically, 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) provides that a court may at any time reduce a sentence upon motion of the Bureau of Prisons for “extraordinary and compelling reasons.” The Sentencing Commission is authorized under 28 U.S.C. § 994(t) to establish policy for courts considering BOP motions under § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i), which it has done under USSG ¶ 1B1.13.  Under this policy guideline, “extraordinary and compelling reasons” that may justify sentence reduction include terminal illness, a physical or medical condition that diminishes a person’s ability to provide self-care in a prison environment, the death or incapacitation of a child’s only caregiver, and any other reason that may be determined to be “extraordinary and compelling” by the Director of BOP.  It is noteworthy that several of the organizations represented on the Clemency Project 2014 steering committee are on record with the Sentencing Commission as favoring a more expansive menu of “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warranting sentence reduction, including one that now seems prescient: “the defendant would have received a significantly lower sentence under a subsequent change in applicable law that has not been made retroactive.” Less than two years ago BOP issued a new policy statement with a list of circumstances in which it may seek a sentence reduction, a list that is evidently not intended to be exhaustive. See Program Statement 5050.46, as amended (August 12, 2013).  Accordingly, there is no reason why BOP could not determine, with or without an amendment to ¶ 1B1.13, that “extraordinary and compelling reasons” exist in any case meeting the criteria set forth by the Deputy Attorney General as warranting a grant of clemency. The coincidence of the standards in the two contexts would be particularly fitting in light of the fact that the judicial sentence reduction authority in § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i) was originally enacted in 1976, at the Justice Department’s instance, to expedite sentence reductions that previously had required a clemency application to be submitted to the President through the Office of the Pardon Attorney. There are in addition other reasons why it would be appropriate to supplement the clemency initiative with a statutory sentence reduction initiative implemented through the courts, including a general preference for a judicial decision-maker under federal sentencing law and policy, and for a congressionally authorized approach over an extra-legal use of executive power. Most scholars agree that clemency ought always to be a second choice where the law provides a remedy for sentencing unfairness or undue severity, as it does in this case.  See, e.g., Daniel J. Freed & Steven L. Chanenson, Pardon Power and Sentencing Policy, 13 Fed. Sent. Rptr. 119, 124 (2001) (“Wherever a rule can be structured to guide the discretion of judges or administrative agencies in determining – with reasons – whether to mitigate the sentences of similarly situated offenders, we think such a system should ordinarily be accorded priority over one that relies exclusively upon the unstructured, unexplained discretion of a president to grant or deny individual pardons or commutations.”) Traditionally, the Federal Defenders have played a central role in proceedings involving judicial consideration of sentence reduction under § 3582(c)(2) where guideline ranges have been lowered, even though there is no constitutional right to counsel in such proceedings.  They are key players in the massive effort to reduce sentences now underway under the so-called “Drugs Minus Two” guidelines amendment. There is no reason why the Defenders should not play a similar role in judicial sentence reduction proceedings under § 3582(c)(1).  There does not appear to be any relevant difference between the two types of proceedings as far as the discretionary appointment power in 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(a)(2) is concerned. In the interests of judicial economy, these proceedings might even be combined. All it would take to make this happen would be a resolve on the part of the Department of Justice to use this statute for the purpose it was originally intended. Augmenting the Administration’s sentence reduction program through broader use of a judicial sentence reduction mechanism, which the Justice Department’s own Inspector General has repeatedly criticized as underutilized (most recently for aging prisoners), would accomplish the Administration’s goals in reducing unduly severe sentences, while at the same time regularizing sentence reduction through the courts pursuant to statute.  It would put sentence reduction on a sounder long-term footing that is more consistent with the principles of determinate sentencing, be more predictable and accountable as a practical matter, and respond to any concerns about the unaccountable use of executive power. Many years ago, when I was serving as Pardon Attorney, then-Deputy Attorney General Philip Heymann asked me why we should ask the President to commute the sentence of an elderly prisoner when (he said) “we can do the job ourselves.”  Now I would ask the new DAG the same question. Read more

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. The system for briefing cases that has been developed by Clemency Project 2014 may have contributed to the slow pace.  Mary Davis, a veteran federal defense lawyer who has handled several cases through that process, commented that “I know there were attorneys signing up for this who don’t do criminal defense work, and I would think it would be extremely difficult.”  Two law students working with her on one case she submitted spent a combined 122 hours helping her with it. But it now appears that a shortage of resources in the Justice Department may also be a contributing factor. The Department told USA Today’s Greg Korte that while it “expects to recommend more commutations to Obama,” this “could take a while.” In its 2016 budget request to Congress, the department said the deluge of clemency applications is too much for the current staff to manage. “As OPA’s existing staff has discovered, expending the substantial resources required simply to manage such a volume of clemency requests significantly decreases those available for analyzing and evaluating the merits of individual applications and preparing the appropriate letters of advice to inform the president,” the Justice Department said in its congressional budget justification. Obama has proposed a 66% budget increase for the Office of Pardon Attorney in 2016, and is seeking twice as many lawyers to process all the paperwork. It was originally hoped that Clemency Project 2014 could “cut through the process by helping to provide the Justice Department with better, more complete case files to review,” but “that solution has also led to criticism from Capitol Hill, where Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, says that the administration is outsourcing a government responsibility.” Even beyond resource problems, the Justice Department’s enthusiasm for the clemency initiative appears to be waning.  A Department spokesperson told USA Today: “The clemency process is just one prong in the department’s efforts on sentencing changes. The department has successfully urged the Sentencing Commission to make changes and continues to push for legislation in Congress as well.”  (While it is true that the Sentencing Commission’s recent reduction of the drug guidelines will accomplish for many prisoners what a grant of clemency would, it won’t help people serving mandatory minimum sentences, or people sentenced under other guidelines, such as the career offender guidelines.) Johanna Markind, an attorney who until recently worked in the Office of the Pardon Attorney, told USA Today that few cases fit the criteria for clemency set forth by former Deputy Attorney General Jim Cole: “The criteria basically suggest that a whole bunch of good citizens who committed one little mistake got significantly more than 10 years in prison, and fortunately that’s pretty rare,” said Johanna Markind, a former attorney-adviser in the Office of Pardon Attorney who left in March. “I think they’ve kind of belatedly realized that people are doing their jobs, and those perfect cases they think are there don’t really exist,” she said. “For all the sound and fury about the commutations, the clemency initiative has only come up with a handful of cases that fit” the criteria. Markind also told USA Today that “the clemency initiative did not relax Obama’s ‘three strikes’ policy making anyone with three or more criminal convictions ineligible for clemency. “‘Criminals with a record do not make the most appealing poster children,’ she said.”  (This statement seems odd in light of the fact that almost all of the 40 individuals whose sentences were commuted by President Obama had prior records, and many had three or more convictions.) Professor Mark Osler, who has in the past been critical of the way the Obama Administration set up its clemency initiative, now seems genuinely discouraged about the prospects for smooth sailing in the months ahead: “We’ve failed the same way through different kinds of administrations, and the problem isn’t the administration, it’s the process,” Osler said. “The sad thing is, every president recently has gotten to the end of their term and said, ‘Hey, where are all the good clemency cases?’   ” I sure hope that will change, but it’s going to be a furious last year as these things start to come in even greater numbers.”   Read more

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.   Read more