Category: Clemency

Danielle Sassoon, interim U.S. attorney for New York, has this op-ed in the WSJ with the above title. The subhead is “Despite his claims, the former president ordered many violent offenders released.”

One senseless decision involved Raheem Davis, who was convicted in my district of narcotics trafficking in 2006, and also separately convicted for his role in a 2005 drug robbery where he opened fire, murdered one person, and permanently crippled another. While awaiting trial in the robbery case, Davis assaulted a corrections officer by repeatedly stabbing him in the head and neck with a shank. In imposing a lengthy sentence meant to incapacitate Davis, the judge described Davis as “out of control” and “violent” and warned that if “he’s out on the street, it is only a matter of time until more people die at his hands.” Davis will now be out of prison this year, rather than in 2043. Continue reading . . .

Following up on posts here and here, I submit a proposed constitutional amendment on pardons:

Continue reading . . .

President Biden’s grant of mass clemency last week did not initially generate the degree of controversy as his earlier pardon of his son, partly because most people were not familiar with the cases. But as individual cases in this mass clemency are examined, very dubious examples are starting to emerge.

WaPo columnist Heather Long is appalled at one of the cases. “My jaw dropped when I saw Michael Conahan, a former judge involved in a notorious ‘kids for cash’ scandal in Pennsylvania, among the nearly 1,500 people President Joe Biden granted clemency to last week…. Conahan and fellow judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. were accused of receiving cash kickbacks in exchange for helping to construct two for-profit juvenile detention facilities in Luzerne County and then sentencing young people to those facilities to keep them full.”

Not only was the judge corruptly taking money to send delinquents to private rather than public lock-ups. That would have been bad enough, but it was much worse than that.

To maximize the payout, they often gave kids the harshest possible sentence. Young people who were first-time offenders and probably should have received a warning or community service would end up locked up. Some were younger than 13. What the judges did caused tremendous harm to thousands of young people and their families. One young man died by suicide. Many youths became depressed and dropped out of high school.

How did such an undeserving miscreant receive the grace of presidential clemency? This is, once again, a case insufficient investigation by an outgoing executive hurriedly handing out clemency during his “lame duck” period. Continue reading . . .

Outgoing Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak had begun the process to clear out Nevada’s death row via a mass clemency. Fortunately, he does not have the authority to do that by himself. He had asked the state’s pardon board to put this step on its agenda. However, Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks challenged that action. Judge James Wilson ruled that the short-notice meeting violated Nevada’s version of Marsy’s Law, which gives victims a right to 15 days notice. The Nevada Independent has this story. Continue reading . . .

Fox News published an article yesterday by the Associated Press discussing the latest acts of clemency and commuted sentences as of Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The most recent commuted life sentence is for a woman who was convicted of murder, she allegedly killed her stepfather. According to Newsom’s statement in the article, “[She] has worked hard to better herself by earning an associate degree, a business certificate and participating in extensive self-help programming”. Due to the decision made by Newsom, she is now eligible for immediate release on parole, regardless of her sentence of 25 years to life in Alameda County in 1992. This is just one of many sentences that Newsom has commuted. 

Continue reading . . .

The President’s plenary power to pardon is an essential part of his authority as head of the executive branch.  The Framers recognized that, sometimes, the reach of criminal law is too wide and too harsh, even if correct under its black letter.  Hence the power to grant clemency.

This week, however, and today in particular, President Trump pardoned a number of people, not because the system had treated them unfairly, but  —  we have no realistic alternative to believing  —  because they were his buddies or political allies.

There is no way to look at this other than as an abuse of office.  Using your power (and your trust) as an officer of the government simply to shower benefits on your friends must be high on the list of what it means to be corrupt.  I was honored to be one of President Trump’s nominees for the Sentencing Commission, but his actions today were wrong.  In a later post, I will examine what if anything can be done to rein in abuses of this sort (which, I might add, are anything but exclusive to Donald Trump).

With Joe Biden’s now having won the election, the question arises whether and how President Trump will exercise his pardon power as his term comes to an end.  Presidents traditionally issue many if not most of their pardons at that time, thus  —  very unfortunately in my view  —  avoiding political accountability for them.  One reason this is so bad is that political accountability is the only kind there is.  Pardons cannot be reviewed or changed by either of the other branches of government.

Continue reading . . .

Here’s the headline from Politico:  “Suspect in Whitmer kidnap plot was pardoned in Delaware last year.”

Now we know, from reading years of pro-leniency sources, that the Politico headline can’t be right.  It’s not that we give clemency to dangerous folks.  Noooooo!  It’s that we’re a punitive, compassion-challenged country that keeps reformed prisoners needlessly locked up for years for no reason other than the sadistic pleasure of it.

Continue reading . . .