Thursday, January 30, 2014
Political Mayhem Thursday: Clemency in the offing!
As many of you know, I have been working for the past five years on spurring the Obama administration to grant more commutations, particularly for those serving long terms on crack convictions. I've been a part of five meetings with presidential advisers, and written several articles urging a vigorous use of the pardon power to address over-incarceration in narcotics cases. I started our clinic at St. Thomas to present and highlight some of those cases. In December, President Obama did something about it, granting eight such commutations. This was great, but as I wrote for MSNBC, it was not nearly enough:
While Obama’s clemency grants were important, principled, and well-chosen, they should be the start of his actions, not the end. The over-incarceration resulting from the War on Drugs has been so extensive, so racially disparate, and so inefficient at addressing any actual problem that the eight commutations issued last week barely made a mark. They represent the first lifeboat off a sinking ship. What remains to be done is to both send many more lifeboats and to fix the ship.
Now, something great has happened. Yesterday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole gave a speech to the New York State Bar Association. As reported by the New York Times, this is part of what he said:
But the President’s grant of commutations for these 8 individuals is only a first step. There is more to be done, because there are others like the eight who were granted clemency. There are more low-level, non-violent drug offenders who remain in prison, and who would likely have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted of precisely the same offenses today. This is not fair, and it harms our criminal justice system.
To help correct this, we need to identify these individuals and get well-prepared petitions into the Department of Justice. It is the Department’s goal to find additional candidates, who are similarly situated to the eight granted clemency last year, and recommend them to the President for clemency consideration.
Just to be clear: Not only is the administration signalling it will grant many more petitions, it is actively soliciting them. Wow... that's a good day.
While Obama’s clemency grants were important, principled, and well-chosen, they should be the start of his actions, not the end. The over-incarceration resulting from the War on Drugs has been so extensive, so racially disparate, and so inefficient at addressing any actual problem that the eight commutations issued last week barely made a mark. They represent the first lifeboat off a sinking ship. What remains to be done is to both send many more lifeboats and to fix the ship.
Now, something great has happened. Yesterday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole gave a speech to the New York State Bar Association. As reported by the New York Times, this is part of what he said:
But the President’s grant of commutations for these 8 individuals is only a first step. There is more to be done, because there are others like the eight who were granted clemency. There are more low-level, non-violent drug offenders who remain in prison, and who would likely have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted of precisely the same offenses today. This is not fair, and it harms our criminal justice system.
To help correct this, we need to identify these individuals and get well-prepared petitions into the Department of Justice. It is the Department’s goal to find additional candidates, who are similarly situated to the eight granted clemency last year, and recommend them to the President for clemency consideration.
Just to be clear: Not only is the administration signalling it will grant many more petitions, it is actively soliciting them. Wow... that's a good day.
