Bush's stingy pardon practice

BUMP AND UPDATE: I see that Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy has a powerful post here also criticizing President Bush's under-use of his pardon power.  In the hope this issue will continue to draw attention in the blogsphere and the media, I have moved up my post on the topic from last night.

Also, for those interested in an in-depth academic and historical examination of the pardon power, the Federal Sentencing Reporter assembled a terrific collection of original articles and historical materials a few years ago in a special double issue on the pardon power and sentencing policy.  A summary of that issue can be found here, and the full table of contents and on-line ordering information is at this link.

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From 12/21 at 9pm:

According to this AP story, President George Bush granted four pardons today, which gives him a total of just 31 pardons and commutations during his first term.  As the AP story notes, this total is "far off the pace of most modern presidents and less than half the 77 granted by his father, President George H.W. Bush, during his single term from 1989 to 1993." 

In a few recent prior posts, I have discussed President Bush's stingy approach to the historic clemency power, as well as other clemency news:

• Pardon me
• No New York clemencies this season
• Come all thee clemencies

UPDATE: Seeking more insights about President Bush's approach to these matters, I wrote to Margaret Colgate Love, a specialist in post-conviction remedies and executive clemency, who served for seven years as US Pardon Attorney under the first President Bush and President Clinton.  Here's her powerful reaction to the recently announced pardons:

These four grants are collectively so banal and inconsequential as to demonstrate once again President Bush's disdain for his own pardon power. In all four cases the crimes were very minor (all were sentenced to probation), and three of the four occurred more than 25 years ago. To confine use of the power to these kinds of cases, as Bush has throughout his four years in office, trivializes and squanders it. When you think of the enormous good that could be done with the power, and what the Framers thought about it as a test of presidential mettle and integrity, you can see that it is a truer measure of presidential courage than almost anything else the President does. Don't forget that this is the ONLY way a federal offender can get relief from the collateral consequences of conviction, which under state law can be very severe.

Relatedly, President Bush has granted only 29 of the 707 pardon cases he has decided to date. This means that his pardon grant rate is less than 3% (his father's pardon grant rate was double that, and all other 20th century Presidents were well into double digits). In addition, the Office of the Pardon Attorney reports that there are over 700 pardon cases still awaiting presidential action -- many of which were filed during the Clinton administration. (This doesn't count the 2000-odd commutation applications that are presently pending). The quality and quantity of this President's pardon grants are hard to square with his statements about the importance of giving convicted people a second chance.