We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
Today, it’s pretty much just comment.
LIST OF ALL THE PEOPLE GETTING CLEMENCY FROM TRUMP DURING COVID-19
1. Roger Stone.
2. Roger Stone.
3. Roger Stone.
4. Roger Stone.
5. Roger Stone.
Did I forget anyone?
As Trump enters the final six months of his first term (and only term, if the combined polls and mood of the electorate is any indication), you can add clemency to the list of Trump accomplishments, along with the border wall, balancing the budget and taking on China. Remember the 3,000 names? The NFL players being asked to submit clemency candidates? The elderly nonviolent prisoners in risk of COVID-19? The turkey? (Not the last one – the turkey got pardoned).
Maybe the President simply lacks a sufficient attention span to get anything done. Perhaps we should elect a goldfish.
Ohio State law professor Doug Berman lamented in his Sentencing Law and Policy blog last week that “I am not really surprised that Prez Trump has entirely failed to deliver on his promise back in March to look at freeing elderly “totally nonviolent” offenders from federal prisons amid the pandemic. But I figure now is as good a time as any to highlight again that Prez Trump could and should, via just a stroke of a pen, bring clemency relief to the many, many federal prisoners who, like Roger Stone, are older, medically vulnerable and present no clear risk to public safety.”
I was pretty tough on President Obama’s chaotic clemency initiative. In retrospect, I should have at least given him credit for trying – however imperfectly – to address the problem. Our incumbent, by contrast, tantalizes with vague promises (“we’re looking at it”) but never delivers.
Delivers? Who am I kidding? He doesn’t know from one minute to the next whether to embrace his limited role in pushing the First Step Act or to rue having ever supporting it. Maybe we’re the fools for ever believing he meant what he said.
Sentencing Law and Policy, A midsummer reminder of all persons that Prez Trump has granted clemency to during the COVID-19 pandemic (July 22)
– Thomas L. Root