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BIDEN TURKEY PARDONS DRAW CRITICISM

President Joe Biden continued a 75-year tradition last week, pardoning a pair of North Carolina turkeys named Chocolate and Chip after his favorite flavor of ice cream.

“The votes are in, they’ve been counted and verified,” Biden said, granting the pardons. “There’s no ballot stuffing. There’s no fowl play.”

Vote counting apparently did not include the over 18,000 people whose applications for pardons or commutations are piled up at the Dept. of Justice Pardon Attorney’s office.

Ohio State University law professor Doug Berman, writing in his Sentencing Law and Policy blog, referred to the ceremony as “the annual turkey pardon silliness at the White House.”

Reason magazine was not much kinder to Biden’s clemency for those convicted of simple marijuana possession announced in October. The mass pardon was “an example of all hat and no cattle,” Reason said. “‘I’m keeping my promise that no one should be in jail for merely using or possessing marijuana,’ [Biden] said in October. ‘None…’ But not a single person was released from custody by the Bureau of Prisons due to Biden’s proclamation… The presidential pardon power can and should be used more often. Not just for turkeys, but for the thousands of people serving decades due to draconian drug laws that Biden supported for most of his political career.”

Associated Press, Biden opens holidays, pardons turkeys Chocolate and Chip (November 21, 2022)

Sentencing Law and Policy, Does Prez Biden’s clemency record in 2022 deserve some praise on the day of turkey pardons? (November 21, 2022)

Reason, Pardon People, Not Turkeys (November 23, 2022)

– Thomas L. Root