Pressure on Obama to grant last-minute pardons, commutations

Washington / AFP

Under mounting pressure to free convicts as a last act, President Barack Obama is planning at least one more batch of pardons and commutations before leaving office in two weeks, but don’t expect many famous offenders to make the list.
The list of bold names appealing to Obama for compassion in his final weeks includes accused leaker Chelsea Manning, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, and supporters of Edward Snowden, to name a few. Yet White House officials say Obama’s final grants are expected to remain focused on the nonviolent drug offenders he’s sought to help during his second term.
That’s a contrast with former presidents like Bill Clinton, who ignited a major controversy with a last-minute pardon for fugitive financier Marc Rich, the ex-husband of a major Democratic fundraiser. But Obama has viewed clemency as a tool to promote policy goals, not to “clean out the barn” on his way out, said the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.
“The process that I put in place is not going to vary” at the end, Obama said in August. He said he’d make the calls “based on the merits, as opposed to political considerations.”
Presidents have two clemency options: commutations, which reduce sentences being served but don’t erase convictions, and pardons, which generally restore civil rights often after a sentence has been served.
Earlier in his presidency, Obama was unsatisfied with the cases he was receiving, officials said, and so in a 2014 initiative the Justice Department created specific criteria focusing on nonviolent individuals like drug offenders who have served 10 years and, if convicted under today’s more lenient sentencing guidelines, would have received shorter sentences. All told, Obama has granted 1,176 commutations and 148 pardons — fewer pardons than some presidents, but more commutations than any other, the White House said.
Obama’s goal in taking on the commutations project was to spur action in Congress on a criminal justice overhaul. That seemed initially promising, but the momentum petered out.
“It’s politically risky. You commute somebody and they commit a crime, and the politics of it are tough,” Obama has said. Some commutation recipients have had firearms violations related to their drug crimes. A handful were unrelated to Obama’s criminal justice push but received clemency as part of diplomatic deals with Iran and Cuba. The more recent batches have included some that met the spirit — but not the letter — of Obama’s guidelines, such as people who have served eight or nine years, but not 10. Mary Price of the advocacy group Families against Mandatory Minimums said Obama’s commutations had increased awareness about decades-long sentences for drug crimes.
“I think that that’s very positive,” Price said, though she added she would have liked even more. But Obama has also been criticized for being too lenient — including by President-elect Donald Trump, who has accused the president of putting “bad dudes” on the street and warned Americans, “Sleep tight, folks.” Steve Cook, the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys president, faulted Obama for feeding the perception that federal prisons are “full of low-level, nonviolent offenders.”

Obama pens law review article on criminal justice challenges 

Washington / AFP

President Barack Obama returns to his roots at the Harvard Law Review on Thursday, penning an article about progress his administration made in reforming the criminal justice system — and the challenges that remain for the next administration.
His commentary, “The President’s Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform,” addresses how presidents can exert influence over the criminal justice system, and how those who serve the president have a responsibility to translate that vision into practical results.
“How we treat citizens who make mistakes (even serious mistakes), pay their debt to society, and deserve a second chance reflects who we are as a people and reveals a lot about our character and commitment to our founding principles,” Obama writes. “And how we police our communities and the kinds of problems we ask our criminal justice system to solve can have a profound impact on the extent of trust in law enforcement and significant implications for public safety.”
In 1990, Obama was named the Harvard Law Review’s first black president. The review was founded in 1887.