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Biden Commutes CARES Act Home Confinement Sentences – Update for December 12, 2024

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BIDEN COMMUTATION WAVE BEGINNING?

CARESEnd230131Early this morning, President Biden announced that he is granting clemency to nearly 1,500 Americans – the most ever in a single day – sent to home confinement under the CARES Act, people who the White House says “were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities.”

He is also pardoning 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes, whose names are not yet available. The White House said, “These actions represent the largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history.”

Biden said in a separate statement,

I am pardoning 39 people who have shown successful rehabilitation and have shown commitment to making their communities stronger and safer. I am also commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people who are serving long prison sentences – many of whom would receive lower sentences if charged under today’s laws, policies, and practices. These commutation recipients, who were placed on home confinement during the COVID pandemic, have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities and have shown that they deserve a second chance.

I will take more steps in the weeks ahead. My Administration will continue reviewing clemency petitions to advance equal justice under the law, promote public safety, support rehabilitation and reentry, and provide meaningful second chances.

Associated Press reported that the second largest single-day act of clemency was by Barack Obama, with 330, shortly before leaving office in 2017.

earlychristmas241212

Back in the final hours of the first Trump Administration, the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion that those persons serving sentences on CARES Act home confinement  would be required to return to secure custody once the national COVID emergency ended. The Justice Department subsequently withdrew that opinion, but with the election of President Trump, there has been substantial speculation – such as this, this and this –that the 2021 opinion could be once again adopted along with calls for Biden to preemptively block such a step with a blanket commutation.

Advocacy groups have been calling for a broad range of pardons, including for people on federal death row and with marijuana convictions. Biden has previously issued blanket pardons for those convicted of minor marijuana-related crimes, but those didn’t make any federal inmates eligible for release, because none of the recipients was in prison.

When Biden issued the blanket pardon in October 2022 for people convicted of marijuana possession on federal property, those benefitting were required to make individual applications to the Dept of Justice for the pardon specific to their cases. As of 6 a.m., details of what, if any, steps CARES Act recipients may have to take to obtain their personal commutations is not yet known.

White House, Release on CARES Act Clemency (December 12, 2024)

White House, Statement on CARES Act Clemency (December 12, 2024)

Associated Press, Biden commutes roughly 1,500 sentences and pardons 39 people in biggest single-day act of clemency (December 12, 2024)

Wall Street Journal, Biden to Commute Sentences of Around 1,500 People (December 12, 2024)

Dept. of Justice, Memorandum Opinion for the General Counsel of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (January 15, 2021)

Dept. of Justice, Discretion to Continue the Home-Confinement Placements of Federal Prisoners After the COVID-19 Emergency  (December 21, 2021)

Hurwitz, Hugh, Biden’s easy case for clemency: prisoners in home confinement (The Hill, November 26, 2024)

Pavlo, Walter, The Bureau of Prisons Under A Trump Administration (Forbes, November 7, 2024)

Ward, Myah, Clemency groups use Hunter pardon to pressure Biden (Politico, December 5, 2024)

– Thomas L. Root

Joe Biden Does a Father’s Duty… Now Who Might Be Next? – Update for December 2, 2024

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BIDEN PARDONS HUNTER… WHO MIGHT BE NEXT?

President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, last night, saving him prison time for gun possession offenses and tax crimes.

pardonme190123I will not listen to criticism for his action, regardless of the fact that the President recklessly claimed last summer he would never do such a thing. What father would not spare his son’s conviction and prison if it was in his power to do so? Even if Joe’s rationale – that no one is ever prosecuted for the 18 USC § 922(g)(3) and 18 USC § 922(a)(6) offenses that Hunter faced, and for his son to be indicted was raw political theater – is bullshit on stilts.

And it is. Somehow Joe omitted mention of Hunter’s tax convictions, those being of a nature and severity that are brought every day. As for the gun offenses, look at United States v. Daniels at Note 6, where a concurring judge chronicles other cases in that Circuit alone where (g)(3) offenses were brought against people who blew a little dope but were not intoxicated when they bought their guns.

Yes, Hunter’s gun offense was pretty pedestrian (but the (g)(3) conviction was probably unconstitutional, as Daniels explains). Still, if I were elected president (an event unlikely to happen), I would pardon any of my kids or siblings or parents or cousins in a heartbeat. It’s family.

In a statement released Sunday, Biden said, “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”

No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son,” Biden said. “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision.

On Twitter (now inexplicably called “X”) last night, New York University law professor and clemency expert Rachel Barkow said, “This pardon of Hunter Biden better be the first of a huge flurry of commutations. There are so many cases even more deserving than this one that the Pardon Attorney has recommended granting, and they’re just waiting for Biden’s signature.”

pardonturkey231121There were others just earlier last week. On Monday, Peaches and Blossom became the 7th and 8th turkeys to be pardoned by Joe Biden in his presidential career. Law professor and clemency expert Mark Osler has noted that presidents could apply lessons from the annual Thanksgiving week event to their clemency practices:

First, it occurs regularly. Turkeys are pardoned every year, not just in the waning days of an administration. Second, decisions are made by objective specialists with the current chairman of the National Turkey Federation… responsible for managing a thorough selection process… Third, there are defined criteria. The finalists are selected based on their willingness to be handled, their health and their natural good looks. Fourth, attention is paid to making sure they thrive after their grant of clemency. After the ceremony, they are sent to Virginia Tech’s “Gobbler’s Rest” exhibit, where they are well cared for… This contrasts sharply with the process of giving clemency to humans… [The] procedure through which clemency is granted is irregular, run largely by biased generalists, devoid of consistent, meaningful criteria, and it does little to ensure success of individuals after their release.

That does not lessen the optimism that in the next 49 days, Biden will hit a home run, pardoning or commuting sentences for everyone from Jack Smith and Merrick Garland to people on death row, CARES Act prisoners and those left behind by the First Step Act’s nonretroactivity.

Democrats and criminal justice reform advocates continue to pressure Biden to use his presidential authority to pardon those currently in federal prison fng from drugs to tax evasion—particularly those awaiting execution for more serious charges. Last week, 54 people who received clemency over the past five presidential administrations asked Biden to be “bold and compassionate during your remaining time in office and grant clemency to the deserving applicants referred to you by the Office of the Pardon Attorney.”

The clemency recipients wrote that they each had received long, unjust sentences before they finally regained their freedom.

death200330Prior to last Monday’s turkey pardoning, the group Prison Policy Initiative blasted Biden for reneging on his campaign promise to end the federal death penalty. “More turkeys have been pardoned from dinner plates in the US than people have been granted clemency from death row,” PPI said in an Instagram post. “Biden’s days left in office are limited, but it’s not too late for him to spare everyone from federal death row (and cement his legacy for the better).”

The Quaker organization Friends Committee on National Legislation said last week that “since 1973 there have been 200 exonerations from death row and over 1,600 people killed, with 50 executions at the federal level.” The group is not asking Biden to pardon all 40 people awaiting capital punishment but instead to commute their sentences to life in prison.

Writing in The Hill last week, former Bureau of Prisons Director Hugh Hurwitz urged Biden to commute the sentences of people currently on CARES Act home confinement. “Now that President-elect Donald Trump is returning to the White House,” Hurwitz wrote, “those remaining in home confinement are again concerned that his administration will reverse course and send them back to prison. Only this time, they have been quietly living at home and working in our communities for almost five years. This uncertainty is creating a lot of anxiety among these people and their families… We do not know what a new Trump administration will do, but there is no reason for us to wait and see. Until Jan 20, Biden has the unique power to grant clemency. This group of people has proven to be trustworthy and safe in our society. If ever there was a case for clemency, this is it.”

compassion160124Whether any of these pressure tactics will be enough to motivate Biden to move on clemency is not clear. But with less than two months left in his presidency, the only real strategy clemency advocates have is to stress how history will view him if he does nothing at all. And that will be effective only to the extent that he cares at all about that.

Associated Press, Biden pardons his son Hunter despite previous pledges not to (December 1, 2024)

United States v. Daniels, 77 F.4th 337 (5th Cir. 2023)

White House, Statement from President Joe Biden (December 1, 2024)

TwitterX, @RachelBarkow (December 1, 2024)

CNN, The process to pardon turkeys is more rational than the one used for humans (November 19, 2018)

Natl Criminal Justice Assn, Hunter Biden Defense Hints That President Should Pardon Him (November 30, 2024)

Tag24, Biden Urged to Take “Last Opportunity” for Positive Legacy in Letter from Over 50 Clemency Recipients (November 26, 2024)

Politico. Biden pardoned turkeys. Will he pardon more people? (November 26, 2024)

Prison Policy Initiative, More turkeys have been pardoned from dinner plates in the US than people have been granted clemency from death row (November 26, 2024)

The Hill, Biden’s easy case for clemency: prisoners in home confinement (November 26, 2024)

NCJA.Org, Death Penalty Opponents Seeking Commutations From Biden (November 26, 2024)

Friends Committee on National Legislation, Recommendations for Executive Action for the Remainder of President Biden’s Term (November 26, 2024)

– Thomas L. Root

Thanksgiving Week: Pardon Me If I Serve Up Turkey – Update for November 25, 2024

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

TURKEY TIME FOR JOE BIDEN

Today, Minnesota turkey farmer John Zimmerman and his son Grant visited the White House to see two of their prize turkeys, Peach and Blossom, receive presidential clemency, something that thousands of human federal prisoners would happily take the birds’ place in order to receive.

turkeypardonme241125President Joe Biden pardoned the 7th and 8th turkeys to receive clemency in his Administration. The spectacle is an annual Thanksgiving ritual that this year is being staged amid a clamor for Biden to issue a veritable feast of real pardons and commutations in the waning days of his Administration.

In the nearly four years he has been in office, Biden has granted 25 pardons and 132 commutations out of the thousands of applications filed. He has also pardoned two classes of people who were not incarcerated, people convicted of simple marijuana possession and members of the military who were court-martialed because of their sexual orientation.

Nearly all of the commutations have involved drug offenses. They number 38 more commutations than his predecessor, Donald Trump, granted in his first term, but fewer than one-tenth of the sentences Barack Obama commuted in his second term. About 8,002 petitions for clemency are pending (including for the two turkeys).

turkeyprison161114Last Wednesday, a gobbling flock of advocates, former prisoners, and families joined 67 congressional leaders in a joint letter urging President Biden to grant clemency to non-violent federal cannabis prisoners before his term ends.

Among federal prisoners, “90% of people are convicted of non-violent offenses. Now is the time to use your clemency authority to rectify unjust and unnecessary criminal laws passed by Congress and draconian sentences given by judges,” the letter says. “We urge you to use your executive clemency power to reunite families, address longstanding injustices in our legal system, and set our nation on the path toward ending mass incarceration.”

Reps Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), James Clyburn (D-SC), and Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) were lead signers of the letter.

pardonturkey231121Also, in a briefing last week, Prison Policy Initiative stated, “Although he’s extended pardons and commutations during his term, President Joe Biden has yet to use his clemency powers for a person facing the federal death penalty, despite openly opposing capital punishment at one time. Biden can still heed increasing calls from advocates to improve his minimal clemency record and clear federal death row of all 40 current death sentences… Given that president-elect Donald Trump enthusiastically supports the death penalty — and has historically abused the pardon power — President Biden could spare 40 lives immediately and reclaim the true function of clemency by commuting all federal death sentences.”

Not that President-elect Trump is anti-pardon. He loves them… for the right people.

Last week, a Trump-appointed federal judge said it would be “beyond frustrating and disappointing” if Trump grants sweeping clemency to most of the defendants charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Federal Judge Carl Nichols (District of Columbia) blasted the prospect of “blanket pardons” or “anything close” during the sentencing of a defendant facing eight assault charges.

Politico said, “Nichols’ comments were a surprise from the typically restrained judge and came at the end of a hearing in which he and federal prosecutors grappled at length with the potential impact of Donald Trump’s election on ongoing Jan 6 cases. He added that “anything close to blanket clemency would be similarly frustrating.”

This American Life: America’s Next Top Gobble (November 15, 2024)

Guardian, Biden must Trump-proof US democracy, activists say: ‘There is a sense of urgency’ (November 24, 2024)

Letter to President Biden (November 20, 2024)

The Appeal, U.S. Reps Urge Biden to Use Clemency to Correct “Extreme Use of Incarceration” (November 20, 2024)

Prison Policy Initiative, Talking turkey about the death penalty: outgoing governors and the president must use their clemency power now (November 18, 2024)

Politico, Trump-appointed judge opposes ‘blanket pardons’ for Jan. 6 defendants (November 19, 2024)

– Thomas L. Root

No Free Drinks While You Lose to the House – Update for July 16, 2024

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LONG ODDS

compeddrink2400716There’s a difference between Las Vegas and asking the Bureau of Prisons to bring a compassionate release motion under 18 USC § 3582(c)(1)(A) on your behalf. In Vegas, they comp you drinks while you’re trying to beat impossible odds.

Under § 3582(c)(1)(A), a prisoner seeking grant of a compassionate release sentence reduction from his or her court must first ask the BOP to file the motion on the inmate’s behalf. This provision was a bone thrown to the BOP when Congress – disgusted after years of the BOP being the exclusive gatekeeper for compassionate release motions without using the authority as Congress intended (or even competently, for that matter) – changed the statute as part of the First Step Act to empower inmates to file directly for compassionate release. Just so the Director wouldn’t pout that power had been stripped from the BOP to lord it over prisoners even beyond control needed for legitimate penological purposes, Congress wrote in a requirement that the prisoner ask the BOP to file the motion on the inmate’s behalf before the inmate was able to bring the motion on his or her own motion.

Of course, in the real world, this creates no incentive for a warden, who has three choices when confronted with such a request:

• If the warden grants the prisoner’s compassionate release request, a package justifying the recommendation that the BOP involve a U.S. Attorney to bring the motion has to be prepared and forwarded to the BOP Regional Office. If the Regional Office approves, the request goes to the BOP Office of General Counsel. If the GC OKs it, it goes to the Director. If the Director approves it, the motion must be prepared by the appropriate US Attorney and filed with the prisoner’s sentencing judge.

•  If the warden denies the request, a document must be prepared and delivered to the prisoner explaining the denial, after which the prisoner may file a motion with his or her sentencing judge.

• If the warden ignores the request, after 30 days the prisoner may file a motion with his or her sentencing judge.

Knowing that a bureaucracy, like water and electricity, seeks the path of least resistance, which of these options is the easiest for the warden? Or which is least likely to reflect badly on the prison administration if a compassionate release turns into a Willie Horton?

denied190109The Dept of Justice knows. In its First Step Act Annual Report – June 2024, the DOJ disclosed that from January 2019 — the first time prisoners could file for compassionate release on their own — through January 2024, prisoners filed 32,991 motions for compassionate release in federal courts. Of that number, the BOP approved 172 such requests. Of that number, 127 approvals were based on the prisoner’s terminal illness, 39 approvals were based on the inmates’s debilitated medical condition, two approvals were for “elderly inmates with medical conditions,” and four requests were based on sexual abuse the prisoner experienced while in custody.

In other words, BOP compassionate release approval stands at 0.5214%, about one out of 200.

And what of those requests for compassionate release that prisoners filed after being turned down? The Sentencing Commission reports that through March 2024, 32.412 such motions had been filed in court, and 5,190 of those (16%) had been granted. Every one of those 5,190 grants was first rejected as unworthy by the BOP.

The rule in the BOP? Deny, deny, deny. Or maybe ignore, ignore, ignore.

So why should the prisoner not just take the commutation route, asking President Joe Biden – who promised to fix the exercise of presidential clemency – for early release?

clemency231222Axios reported last weekend that President Biden has continued a trend of increasingly stingy grants of commutation or pardon. In four years, Jimmy Carter granted 21.6% of clemency petitions. Ronald Reagan granted 11.9% over eight years. Bill Clinton granted 6.1%, Barack Obama 5.3%. Even Donald Trump granted 2.0%.

So far, excluding Biden’s meaningless mass pardon of marijuana possession offenses that promised 13,000 pardons but has so far only delivered for about 205 people, Biden has granted 1.3% of clemency requests, the lowest percentage of any president in at least the last 50 years.

A clemency petition passes through seven layers of review, a cumbersome process Biden has worsened by requiring input from the Domestic Policy Council. Mark Osler, a law professor and expert on clemency, said, “Biden seems to be stuck with is a system of analysis that doesn’t work and hasn’t worked for his predecessors either.” 

Frank Bowman, a law professor who has written extensively on the pardon power, cited the “nasty politics of our era” as a significant factor in making the use of clemency power problematic.

horton230317No president wants to needlessly create a Willie Horton moment, to grant clemency to someone in prison who then commits a new offense that becomes grist in the campaign mill.

Thus, denial (or just inaction) becomes as appealing to a president as it is to a warden.

US Sentencing Commission, Compassionate Release Data Report – Fiscal Year 2024, 2nd Quarter

Dept of Justice. First Step Act Annual Report – June 2024

Axios, Why presidents are wielding their pardon powers less and less (July 13)

– Thomas L. Root

Biden Gets a Second Chance – Update for April 11, 2024

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BIDEN’S SECOND CHANCE TO GET SECOND CHANCE MONTH RIGHT

second170119President Biden has again designated April as Second Chance Month, the eighth annual proclamation since Charles Colsen’s Prison Fellowship convinced Congress to recognize April for that purpose in 2017.

Biden used the proclamation as a chance to burnish his Administration’s achievements in promoting second chances for prisoners, including what he called “over 100 concrete actions that my Administration is taking to boost public safety by improving rehabilitation in jails and prisons, helping people rebuild their lives, and reducing unnecessary interactions with the criminal justice system so police officers can focus on fighting crime.”

So far, those “actions” have not included much use of the presidential clemency power. In. The Hill, Rev. Terrence McKinley said that despite Biden’s annual “call to prioritize criminal justice reform and the clemency process in the United States,” he has only exercised his pardon power to grant 13 pardons and 124 commutations, less than one percent of the thousands of pending applications.”

Rev. McKinley, pastor of the Campbell AME Church in Washington, DC, wrote that

A pardon is an act of grace. But such acts of grace should not be so rare…. By exercising his pardon power more robustly, President Biden has the opportunity to paint a stark contrast with his predecessor… [T]here are thousands of people with criminal records whose applications for clemency have been languishing in the federal system—people who are currently in prison serving overly harsh sentences and people who have been released long ago but live with the looming threat of deportation, barriers to employment and housing, and other forms of civil death.

obtaining-clemencyLast April, Biden commuted the sentences of 31 prisoners already on CARES Act home confinement.

Proof of Biden’s commitment to clemency may be reflected in White House response to the DOJ Office of the Pardon Attorney. The OPA recently published its FY 2025 President’s Budget Submission, requesting $12.5 million (a 16% increase) to add to petition processing staff. OPA has 40 employees (including 26 attorneys) now. Its not-especially-ambitious goal is to increase the number of cases on which it makes a recommendation in a year from 30 to 35% and to increase the amount of correspondence answered in one month from 90 to 92%.

There is an undercurrent of unhappiness, even among Biden supporters, over his lukewarm embrace of federal criminal justice reform. Eric Alexander, a formerly incarcerated Black man, who now works for the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, was recently asked by a member of the legislature about Biden’s record on criminal justice compared to his predecessor, Donald Trump, who signed the First Step Act into law. Alexander said, “It is my belief that if the last administration was allowed to be in office again, that we wouldn’t be here having this conversation. That administration would have dealt with this…”

promise210805St John University law prof Mark Osler, a clemency expert, said on CNN, “Alexander wasn’t deluded, tricked or unknowledgeable. While Trump promised nothing on criminal justice reform but still did something significant, Biden promised a lot but so far has done nothing of real substance. For those of us who don’t want Trump to be re-elected, this is an uncomfortable truth, but to Biden and his campaign, it should be a call to action.”

White House, A Proclamation on Second Chance Month, 2024 (March 29, 2024)

The Hill, This Easter, I pray for pardons (March 31, 2024)

CNN, Biden’s failures in criminal justice could cost him an election (March 26, 2024)

– Thomas L. Root

Prisoners Joining The 16,000-Member Club – Update for January 11, 2024

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BIG BOX, SMALL BAUBLE

My email inbox started smoking yesterday with reports from federal prisoners that they were receiving the promised Dept of Justice Office of Pardon Attorney letters informing them that their clemency petitions – many of which had been languishing for years – had been denied. Never year, the letters advised them, because they are welcome to apply again on the new and improved form.

The letter is at once brazen in its misrepresentations and utterly incompetent in its execution. What do I mean?

clemencyltr240111How about this? “Your commutation application was carefully considered, and the determination was made that favorable action is not warranted at this time.” Suddenly, after letting 16,000 or so clemency petitions pile up – although to be fair, most petitions were already piled high on the tables and chairs and floor when she took office – Pardon Attorney Elizabeth G. Oyer had in a few short weeks “carefully considered” all of the thousands of clemency petitions clogging the offices and corridors and made the “determination… that favorable action is not warranted at this time.”

That’s not what DOJ said.

The current Administration inherited an unprecedented backlog of clemency petitions. Soon, the Justice Department will begin issuing letters to petitioners that have not been granted clemency in order to deliver closure to those waiting for answers they deserve. Those receiving letters are welcome to submit new petitions.

No careful consideration. No “determination” that favorable action was not warranted. just delivery of closure and an invitation to start over.

Honesty, which appears to be in short supply at the OPA, would have said, “We’re so overwhelmed with petitions, many of them years old, that we’re just throwing everything out and starting over. If you’re still interested, you’re welcome to file again.”

OPApardonoyer240111And how about “[T]he list of names is published on the Department’s website at www.justice.gov/pardon?” As of January 10, 2024, no such list can be found. So an office so dysfunctional that it can’t even rustle up a list of all of the prisoners and former prisoners whose petitions were bounced – after telling unhappy applicants that the list was online – wants prisoners to believe that their “commutation application[s were] carefully considered.”

Or maybe the OPA doesn’t even care whether petitioners believe the assurance or not.

Sadly, this latest affront is about par for the Biden clemency approach. Sure, clemency seemed to be for sale in the Trump White House, but at least it was available, even if you had to navigate The Donald’s kleptocracy to get one. With President Biden, virtually the only people able to get clemency are the ones no longer in prison.

Which leads me to clemency experts and law profs Rachel Barkow and Mark Osler, who last week accurately described most of President Biden’s December 2023 clemency grants as just a “small gift in a big box,” according to .

Writing in The Hill, Osler and Barkow complained that Biden’s “claim to ‘have exercised my clemency power more than any recent predecessor has at this point in their presidency’ is pure hyperbole, but underneath might be the seed of a truly significant movement towards more meaningful uses of federal clemency.”

First, the hollow gesture: Biden’s pardon of people convicted of simple marijuana possession underwhelms. The Sentencing Commission estimates that more than 6,500 people are covered by the pardon but only 110 people have applied for the pardon so far.

The commutation of sentences of 11 people who were serving extraordinarily long sentences for nonviolent drug distribution offenses is more significant, Barkow and Osler say, but “eleven grants from a backlog of more than 16,000 clemency petitions waiting for action is hardly grounds for applause.”

paperpile240111

A few weeks before, Osler wrote in The Atlantic that federal clemency “has become a certifiable disaster, [having] withered to the point of uselessness and disrepute after decades of neglect, abuse, and administrative bloat. Petitions go through seven consecutive levels of review, wandering through the deeply conflicted Department of Justice — which sought the sentence in the first place — and the office of the White House Counsel. Not surprisingly, given this sticky muck of bureaucracy, a backlog of more than 16,000 pending petitions has built up—a striking number compared with the fewer than 2,000 pending petitions at the start of Barack Obama’s first term as president or the 452 petitions that President Bill Clinton inherited.”

The DOJ has promised a new, more streamlined process, but recalling that Biden – the “most lackluster user of the pardon power in memory [who] has done little beyond granting commutations to people who are already out of prison and pardons to minor marijuana offenders” – is the one making the promise, skepticism is the order of the day.

This week’s form-letter offal only underscores the reason such dubiousness is justified.

The Hill, Biden’s marijuana clemency grants are a small present in a big box (January 1, 2024)

The Atlantic, The Forgotten Tradition of Clemency (December 16, 2023)

– Thomas L. Root

Uncle Joe Goes Light on Clemency Gifts This Christmas – Update for December 22, 2023

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CLEMENCY FOR CHRISTMAS

clemencyjack161229I had a post prepared wondering whether we would see any clemency from President Biden this year. As I was putting it up this morning, the President announced one mass pardon and commutations of sentences for “11 fellow Americans who are serving unduly long sentences for non-violent drug offenses.”

First, the mass marijuana pardon. The President granted a pardon 

to all current United States citizens and lawful permanent residents who, on or before the date of this proclamation, committed or were convicted of the offense of simple possession of marijuana, attempted simple possession of marijuana, or use of marijuana, regardless of whether they have been charged with or prosecuted for these offenses on or before the date of this proclamation.” The pardon covers people violating 21 USC § 844 (simple possession on federal property), 21 USC § 846 (attempts to possess pot), DC Code sections prohibiting simple possession of marijuana, and any of a thundering herd of Federal regulations that prohibit “only the simple possession or use of marijuana on Federal properties or installations, or in other locales, as currently or previously codified.

numbersBeyond that, the President commuted the sentences of 11 people convicted of drug offenses. His clemency picks by the numbers:

• Two of the recipients had trafficked in methamphetamines and nine in cocaine or crack;

• Four of the recipients were serving life terms, five were serving 20-year sentences, one a 22-year sentence, and one a 15-1/2 year sentence;

• For the non-life sentence people, the average sentence was 235 months. The commutations cut those sentences by an average of 19%;

• One life sentence recipient had served 15 years, the other three had served from 25-27 years;

• Two of the life-sentence inmates still have substantial time left to serve, one 8 years and the other 12 years; and

• Nine of the recipients were in prison, two were already on home confinement or in halfway house;

Any clemency is good clemency, but President Biden’s production is a little paltry. Last year, Biden issued pardons to six people on December 28, four for various low-level drug offenses, one for the illegal sale of whiskey, and one to an 80-year-old woman who killed her husband 47 years ago. All of the people were convicted for crimes that occurred at least 20 years before. No one had served more than two years.

At the time, the White House said the pardoned people had served sentences and “demonstrated a commitment to improving their communities and the lives of those around them.” This time around, the President said that the commutation serves “to uphold the values of redemption and rehabilitation.”

President Biden’s clemency performance to date is tepid. Law professor Mark Osler, one of a handful of clemency scholars in the US, wrote in The Atlantic:

Obama granted more than 1,700 commutations, which, unlike a pardon, shorten a sentence while leaving the conviction standing. But he accomplished this by cranking the broken system hard; he never changed the process. The news since then has been depressing. Donald Trump used clemency largely to reward tough guys, fraudsters, and others he knew or admired, and only a couple hundred of them at that. Joe Biden is the most lackluster user of the pardon power in memory. He has done little beyond granting commutations to people who are already out of prison and pardons to minor marijuana offenders. He has yet to even deny any petitioners by presidential action. An enormous backlog of petitions languishes, ignored.

clemency231222The politically safe but meaningless blanket pardon for simple marijuana possession will likely garner the headlines. Remember, when the President announced a mass pardon in October 2021, none of the eligible recipients was even in prison. President Biden’s action today has cut the number of pending petitions for clemency by an estimated six-one hundredths of a percent. There’s a reason I tell people wanting a federal clemency to use the $1.00 it will cost to mail it for a lottery ticket instead: the odds of winning big in Powerball are so much better.

White House, A Proclamation on Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of Marijuana, Attempted Simple Possession of Marijuana, or Use of Marijuana (December 22, 2023)

White House, Clemency Recipient List (December 22, 2023)

Reuters, Biden reduces sentences of 11 facing non-violent drug charges (December 22, 2023)

The Atlantic, The Forgotten Tradition of Clemency (December 16, 2023)

AP, Biden pardons 6 convicted of murder, drug, alcohol crimes (December 30, 2022)

– Thomas L. Root

Turkeys Pardoned While 18,000 Wait – Update for November 21, 2023

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BIDEN GRANTS PARDONS  – BUT JUST FOR SOME TURKEYS

President Biden bettered his dismal record on granting pardons and commutations yesterday. Unfortunately, the gobbling recipients are not in BOP custody.

pardonturkey231121Two Minnesota turkeys, Liberty and Bell, arrived at the White House in a stretch Cadillac Escalade to receive a pardon from the President in the annual darkly humorous (except to the incarcerated and their families) White House Thanksgiving ceremony. The Washington Post calls a “hollow tradition.”

Although Biden branded it “the biggest edition of this wonderful White House Thanksgiving tradition,” the Post said the “event felt exceedingly breezy and unmemorable — even by turkey-pardon standards.”

The birds hatched in July on a farm near Willmar. Within 150 miles of the farm are nearly 1,500 men and women in BOP facilities, none of whom received pardons or commutations yesterday. Over 18,000 clemency applications are on file at the DOJ (not including the two for the turkeys).

clemency220418Last week, Pardon Attorney Elizabeth Oyer visited FCI Petersburg to provide a series of educational sessions about the federal clemency process. Given the 18,000-application backlog and low number of Biden pardons and commutations granted almost three years into his term, the purpose of the Pardon Attorney’s “initiatives” is unclear. The Pardon Attorney said the visit and prior sessions at Ft Dix, Lewisburg and Aliceville are part of a year-round initiative by her Office “to increase the accessibility and transparency of the clemency process through education and community engagement.”

Better gobbledygook couldn’t have emanated from the happy birds, Liberty & Bell. And they should be happy. Today, without even asking for it, they got something over 18,000 federal prisoners have asked for but not gotten: clemency.

MPR News, Minnesota turkeys headed to White House for presidential pardon (November 17, 2023)

Washington Post, Biden turns 81, pardons turkeys, confuses Britney for Taylor (November 20, 2023)

Prison Policy Initiative, Executive inaction: States and the federal government fail to use commutations as a release mechanism (April 2022)

Dept of Justice Press Release, Readout of Pardon Attorney Elizabeth Oyer’s Visit to Federal Correctional Institution Petersburg (November 15, 2023)

– Thomas L. Root

Biden Commutes Sentences of 31 People Who Are Already At Home – Update for May 1, 2023

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

BIDEN COMMUTATIONS UNDERWHELM OVER 17,400 PEOPLE

obtaining-clemencyPresident Biden commuted the sentences of 31 federal prisoners last Friday, all of whom are currently on CARES Act home confinement. In each of the cases – involving sentences from 84 to 360 months – the commutation cut their imprisonment-at-home terms to end on June 30, 2023.

The 31 people whose sentences were commuted were doing time for nonviolent drug offenses, but none was in a secure facility. Instead, they were already living at home, working or going to school, attending religious services, shopping, but being confined to their homes otherwise, a White House official said. Nevertheless, the people whose sentences were committed, according to the Biden Administration, “have demonstrated rehabilitation and have made contributions to their community.”

Many of those receiving commutations would have received a lower sentence if they had been convicted of the same offense after passage of the First Step Act.

I don’t doubt that the 31 deserved commutations. My complaint is that addressing overly-long sentences that could no longer be imposed and mass incarceration by commuting 31 sentences is like bailing the ocean with a spoon.oceanclemency230501

The 31 commutations appeared to be window dressing to last Friday’s announcement of the White House’s broader initiative that aims to bolster the “redemption and rehabilitation” of people previously incarcerated through greater access to housing, jobs, food and other assistance. The announcement came at the end of Biden’s proclaimed “Second Chance Month,” which the White House says is an attempt to put a greater focus on helping those with criminal records rebuild their lives.

The “second chance” effort, described in a Dept of Justice 66-page Strategic Plan Pursuant to Section 15(f) of Executive Order 14074 issued last Friday, is an ambitious plan to provide rehabilitation services to federal and state prisoners, including programs for education, addiction treatment, services to female inmates, reduction of the use of SHUs and the now-obligatory plans to address LGBTQI+ prisoners, especially transgender ones. It promises changes to provide immediate Medicaid healthcare coverage to people being released, access to housing, enhance educational opportunities; expand access to food and subsistence benefits, and provide access to job opportunities and access to business capital.

As part of the push, the Dept of Education will make 760,000 federal and state prisoners eligible for Pell Grants through prison education programs and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will make some prisoners eligible for limited Medicaid coverage shortly before their expected release.

bureaucracybopspeed230501The plan begs the question of why, with First Step now over five years old, DOJ is only now providing its hagiographic description of what it intends to do. For example, the Dept of Education announced that it would renew the availability of Pell grants for prisoners – once common in the BOP but discontinued as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 – 20 months ago. But so far the BOP has only made access to Pell Grants “currently available through a pilot program to seven sites within BOP, where 300 incarcerated students are enrolled in college courses with two additional sites beginning implementation.”

Thus, with a head start beginning in August 2021, the BOP has signed up only 0.2% of its population for college course (which, incidentally, count for FSA credits).

clemency170206As for the clemency, the President’s commutation action brings the total number of federal prisoners whose sentences he has reduced over more than two years to 111, according to DOJ data. With 17,145 clemency petitions on file, this means that in Biden’s presidency thus far, he has acted on about 0.6% of petitions on file.

Biden’s promise early in his presidency to set up a White House commission to efficiently and fairly assess clemency petitions has never come to pass, just as his two large commutation announcements – 75 commuted in April 2022 and 31 now – appear to have just been a gimmick: heavy with women last year and all on home confinement with nonviolent drug convictions this year. One can only hope the DOJ’s ambitious “strategic plan” is more substantive than the President’s other criminal justice reform initiatives.

The White House, Clemency Recipient List (April 28, 2023)

DOJ, Rehabilitation, Reentry, and Reaffirming Trust: The Department of Justice Strategic Plan Pursuant to Section 15(f) of Executive Order 14074 (April 28, 2023)

Washington Post, Biden grants clemency to 31 drug offenders, rolls out rehabilitation plan (April 28, 2023)

Washington Times, Biden reduces sentences for 31 drug offenders (April 28, 2023)

The Hill, Biden to commute sentences of 31 nonviolent drug offenders, releases new rehabilitation plan (April 28, 2023)

– Thomas L. Root

‘Nothing’ Really IS Sacred – Update for April 25, 2023

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

DEPT. OF MEANINGLESS CELEBRATIONS

partytime230425In honor of President Biden’s March 31 proclamation marking April as Second Chance Month, the Dept. of Justice’s Office of Pardon Attorney hosted “A Celebration of Second Chances” last Friday.

The event featured opening remarks by Deputy Attorneys General Lisa Monaco and Kristen Clarke and a panel of DOJ speakers and prior clemency or compassionate release recipients. who will discuss the impact of second chances through clemency. OPA said in a press release that it “is dedicated to supporting the President’s work to provide second chances to individuals who are currently or previously were incarcerated by the federal justice system.”

The event featured a panel of DOJ speakers and prior clemency or compassionate release recipients, who discussed “the impact of second chances through clemency.” OPA said in a press release that it “is dedicated to supporting the President’s work to provide second chances to individuals who are currently… incarcerated by the federal justice system.”

nothing230425Horror-and-fantasy cartoonist Gahan Wilson, whose work fueled my adolescent sense of irony way too many years ago, once drew a cartoon of strangely-clad cultists worshiping an altar festooned with the word “NOTHING” and a large “N.” One skeptic at the side of the crowd is asking another, “Is ‘nothing’ sacred?” Second Chance Month has succeeded in making life intimate art: Biden’s clemency initiative (as was Trump’s) is a ‘nothing,’ and Second Chance Month is worshiping it.

clemency220418Rarely has dedication been accompanied by such institutional failure. About 18,000 clemency petitions languish on file at DOJ, many dating from the Obama era. When elected, Biden promised a restructuring of the clemency process to expand its use and remove what he saw as excesses of the Trump era. That never happened. Biden granted clemency to 81 people last year (as well as people with federal marijuana possession, none of whom was in prison for the offense, had filed for clemency, or – for that matter – has even been publicly identified).

On an ACLU podcast last week, Cynthia Roseberry, Acting Director of the ACLU’s Justice Division, called on Biden “to retrospectively give clemency to people who have been charged previously and are sentenced disparately because they were charged with crack cocaine” during Second Chance Month.

DOJ Office of Pardon Attorney, Second Chance Month 2023 (April 12, 2023)

ACLU, Clemency Is One Answer to the War On Drugs (April 20, 2023)

– Thomas L. Root