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January 1, 2021

Reviewing CJUTF Recommendations: when and how might Biden Administration create an independent clemency board?

Right after the election, I blogged a bit (here and here) about some criminal justice reform recommendations from the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force (available here pp. 56-62); I stressed in one of those posts that Prez-elect Biden could get started right away in implementing recommendations calling for creating a new "Task Force on Prosecutorial Discretion" and a "Clemency Board."  Especially with so much clemency chatter as Prez Trump's term comes to a close, I am eager to again amplify attention on the clemency recommendation.  Helpfully, this lengthy new Bloomberg piece, headlined "Biden Gets Unlikely Advice on Pardons: Copy Trump, Sideline DOJ," provides some useful background and context.  Here are excerpts:

President Donald Trump’s pardons of some of his closest allies have sparked a political firestorm, but criminal justice reform advocates believe he has done one thing right: sideline the Department of Justice from clemency decisions.  But rather than use that control the way Trump has, those advocates want to see President-elect Joe Biden use it to help non-violent drug offenders with questionable convictions or harsh sentences.  Relying on the DOJ’s Office of the Pardon Attorney to review and make recommendations on clemency requests, they say, is bureaucratic and puts those decisions in the hands of the department that put the offenders behind bars....

Biden’s criminal justice plan proposes a number of reforms and says he will “broadly use his clemency power for certain non-violent and drug crimes.” The campaign would not comment past the plan’s language.  In addition to removing the sole oversight of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, Biden could improve the process by creating a permanent independent advisory panel that includes criminal justice reform activists, defense attorneys and pardoned convicted offenders, alongside federal prosecutors, supporters say.

“It should certainly include people who are formerly incarcerated because they know that walk better than anybody,” said Cynthia W. Roseberry, deputy director of policy in the Justice Division of the American Civil Liberties Union.  “Also include criminal justice reform experts and members of the community who can opine about the fact that we want people to come home.  I’m not suggesting leaving DOJ out,” Roseberry added.  “They can definitely have a prosecutor at the table.  But it should look like the community.”

Though the Biden campaign language does not commit to creating a new clemency infrastructure, the criminal justice reform recommendations from the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force expressly proposes doing so:

Clemency Board: To avoid possible institutional bias and ensure people have a fair and independent evaluation, establish an independent clemency board, composed and staffed by people with diverse backgrounds.  Expand Obama-era criteria for proactive clemency initiative to address individuals serving excess sentences.

Long-time readers should not be surprised to hear me vocally advocate for a clemency board given that way back in 2010, I urged then-Prez Obama to structurally change the federal clemency system in this law review article titled "Turning Hope-and-Change Talk Into Clemency Action for Nonviolent Drug Offenders."  Here is a snippet from that piece:

President Obama ought to seriously consider creating some form of a "Clemency Commission" headed by a "clemency czar."...  Though a "Clemency Commission" headed by a "clemency czar" could be created and developed in any number of ways, ... [the] basic idea is ... to create a special expert body, headed by a special designated official, who is primarily tasked with helping federal officials (and perhaps also state officials) improve the functioning, transparency, and public respect for executive clemency.  Though the structure, staffing, and mandates of a Clemency Commission could take many forms, ideally it would include personnel with expertise about the nature of and reasons for occasional miscarriages of justice in the operation of modem criminal justice systems — persons who possess a deep understanding that, in the words of James Iredell, "an inflexible adherence to [severe criminal laws], in every instance, might frequently be the cause of very great injustice."

Many others have been talking for many years in many better ways about the idea of an DOJ-independent clemency board or commission, and I especially think of the tireless work of Rachel Barkow and Mark Osler in promoting an improved clemency infrastructure (see, e.g., here and here and here and here).  And I want to here promote all ideas about clemency reform because I now believe when the Biden Administration gives attention to this matter is much more important than exactly how. 

As I noted in this recent post, among the many problems with the modern exercise of the federal clemency power is the modern tendency for Presidents to entirely ignore this power until late in their terms.  As detailed in this DOJ data, Prez Trump at least thought to use his clemency power, and did so nearly a dozen times, during his first couple years in office; Barack Obama and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton could not be bothered to pick up the clemency pen for a single individual during their first two calendar years in office.  If clemency work and reform is not made a priority in the weeks and months ahead, I fear that real reforms are unlikely to get done at all. 

At this moment, I am drawn to the notion of starting with a "clemency czar," particularly because appointing one initial advisor should be easier and quicker than creating a full clemency board.  And the aforementioned Rachel Barkow and Mark Osler and Cynthia Roseberry are all great names surely ready to serve in this role on day one.  And while ruminating on this topic, other great names of great people long doing great work in the criminal justice space come to mind, like Michelle Alexander and David Singleton and Bryan Stevenson.  (Heck, add in folks like Weldon Angelos, Brittany Barnett, Beth Curtis, Mark Holden, Shon Hopwood, Jessica Jackson and Amy Povah, and I guess it is not too hard to quickly envision a "Dream Team" for a badly-needed clemency board.) 

Some (of many) prior recent related posts on clemency reform:

Some prior related posts on CJUTF recommendations:

January 1, 2021 at 12:34 PM | Permalink

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