Tag: pardon

President declares U.S. a “nation of second chances” but issues no pardons

In commuting the sentences of 46 individuals serving long drug sentences, President Obama declared that America is a “nation of second chances” in a video address posted on the White House website.  But that sunny optimism about our country’s willingness to forgive hasn’t led him to grant very many pardons, the relief whose purpose is to restore rights and status to those who have fully served their sentences, to give them a second chance at first class citizenship.  Indeed, as Michael Isikoff reported the same day the commutations were issued, Obama’s 64 pardons are the fewest issued by any full-term president since John Adams.  Indeed, the President has commuted more in the past six months than he has pardoned in his entire time in office. The President’s determination to reduce unjustly lengthy prison sentences is commendable and historically significant.  But it need and should not lead him to the neglect the other part of the clemency caseload, the petitions filed by individuals who have led exemplary lives for many years but are still burdened by severe collateral consequences and the stigma of conviction. Unfortunately those petitions appear to have have been shunted to the back burner in the excitement of the […]

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“Poised to commute dozens of sentences, Obama remains the ‘Scrooge’ of pardons”

Yahoo News has published a piece by its chief investigative reporter Michael Isikoff commenting on how few pardons President Obama has granted, and how backed up the Justice Department’s pardon office seems to be.  He illustrates the problem of presidential inaction with the case of Sala Udin, a Pittsburgh community activist and former City Council member, whose application for pardon of a 1970 firearms conviction has been awaiting decision for several years. Isikoff reports that while the President is likely to issue a number of sentence commutations this week, no pardons will be forthcoming. This leaves the 800 people whose pardon applications are pending in the Justice Department wondering whether there is hope for forgiveness during this president’s term. What does it take to get a pardon from President Obama? It’s a question Sala Udin, a former Pittsburgh City Council member and onetime civil rights Freedom Rider, is asking a lot this summer, more than three years after he first asked a president he deeply admires to grant him a pardon for a 44-year-old federal firearms conviction.

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Leaked White House memos detail president’s pardon policy

USA Today has published a White House document detailing President Obama’s policy on granting clemency, including both sentence commutation and post-sentence pardons.  In a memorandum dated July 13, 2010 to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, White House Counsel Robert Bauer “convey[ed] the President’s views” on the exercise of his constitutional pardon power, affirming traditional standards but emphasizing that there are “certain offenses for which a pardon should very rarely, if ever, be granted absent truly exceptional circumstances.”  Among these were “large-scale drug trafficking” in which the applicant had “a significant role,” and financial fraud cases involving “substantial loss to the federal government or its programs.” The memo affirmed the five-year eligibility waiting period for a pardon, overriding a 2001 policy of the Bush Administration (also published for the first time) that imposed an informal 10-year waiting period.  At the same time, it emphasized that the passage of additional time may strengthen an applicant’s case for pardon:

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President promises a more “open” pardon process, more pardon grants

During a Town Hall in South Carolina on March 6, President Obama spoke for the second time in recent weeks about his intention to use his pardon power more generously in the final two years of his term. Responding to a criminal defense attorney who asked what she could do to “increase the number of federal pardons,” the President explained that he was taking a “new approach” to pardons after receiving surprisingly few favorable recommendations from the Justice Department during his first term.  He said he had asked the Attorney General to “open up” the pardon process, and to work with advocacy groups and public defenders to make people more aware of the availability of this relief:

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Ohio pardons provide “only forgiveness, not forgetfulness”

On January 28, 2015, the Ohio Supreme Court settled an issue it has toyed with for several years, relating to the inherent power of courts to seal criminal records.  In State v. Radcliff, a closely divided court held that judicial power to seal a conviction record, including the record of a conviction that has been pardoned, is limited by law. In Ohio, there is no statutory basis for sealing a pardoned conviction as there is in many (though not most) states.  The majority evidently found this conclusion an unhappy one, lamenting that “until the General Assembly acts, we are left with the understanding that a pardon provides only forgiveness, not forgetfulness.” “Only forgiveness.”  Is pardon then such a second class prize?  What makes an official determination of the recipient’s good character by the state’s highest elected official so much less attractive an option for mitigating the adverse consequences of conviction than pretending it never occurred?  If the answer is that the American people are relentlessly unforgiving, we clearly have some national soul-searching to do. As will come clear from the following discussion, I do not share the Radcliff majority’s evident belief that a pardon is worth little unless it results in […]

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