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December 15, 2021
"Would an independent commission solve the clemency backlog?"
The question in the title of this post is the headline of the this notable new commentary in the Chicago Sun-Times authored by Jacob Sullum. Here are excerpts:
When Jimmy Carter became president in 1977, fewer than 500 clemency petitions were pending at the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. When Joe Biden became president in January, he faced more than 15,000 petitions, a number that had risen to more than 18,000 as of Dec. 14.
A bill that Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) unveiled last Friday seeks to address this alarming backlog, which includes many people serving unconscionably long sentences for non-violent crimes, by eliminating the Office of the Pardon Attorney and assigning its functions to an independent, nine-member U.S. Clemency Board appointed by the president.
While Pressley is rightly concerned that meritorious cases are languishing at the Justice Department, it’s not clear that her FIX Clemency Act would work as advertised....
The surge in commutation petitions followed an explosion in the federal prison population, which rose ninefold between 1980 and 2013, from fewer than 25,000 to more than 219,000. Since then, the total has fallen by 29%, but it is still more than six times the number in 1980.
Sentences also have increased dramatically. Current federal prisoners, 46% of whom are serving time for drug offenses, received an average sentence of 147 months, nearly three times the average sentence imposed in 1986....
So far, Biden has not granted any pardons or commutations. But when he gets around to it, recent history suggests the Office of the Pardon Attorney will be ill-equipped to help him....
Pressley and her allies argue that the current system entails an unavoidable conflict of interest, since it charges the same department that sends people to federal prison with deciding whether to recommend that the president shorten their sentences. Former prisoners such as Danielle Metz and Alice Marie Johnson, who were serving life sentences for non-violent cocaine offenses before they were freed by Obama and former President Donald Trump, respectively, agree with this critique and support Pressley’s bill....
One way or the other, the buck stops with the president, who has plenary power to grant clemency. If Biden is serious about trying to make up for his past as a lock-’em-up legislator, he should get started.
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December 15, 2021 at 10:00 PM | Permalink
