Thursday, February 20, 2020
Political Mayhem Thursday: About those clemencies....
People are pretty irate about President Trumps commutation grant to Crystal Munoz on Tuesday. For those of you who missed it, she has served twelve years in prison for a minor role in a marijuana trafficking scheme. She was pregnant during her trial, and gave birth as a prisoner. She can now go home to her children.
What, what? That's not what people were upset about?
Oh, right, Rod Blagojavich, Michael Milken, Bernard Kerik, Eddie DeBartolo, Jr..... I think those were the ones people were upset about. And I get that. But granting them mercy hurts no one. Blagojavich was the only one still in prison, and he had already done ten years. That's a lot of time.
The problem isn't granting too many clemencies, it's not granting enough. Much more needs to be done so that we are finding all of the other Crystal Munoz's out there. In fact, in this batch, there were several that were justifiable by any measure. But there needs to be a better process so that the 13,900+ petitions in the current backlog can be evaluated and ruled on. As you know, I have a plan for that...
Right now, celebrities and public figures are playing an outsized role in the clemency selection process. The Trump administration is making no secret of that-- in fact, they issued a remarkable press release that literally lists all of the public figures supporting each of the people who received clemency this week. To pick the wackiest one, for example, it reports that the pardon for Bernard Kerik was supported by "Rudy Giuliani, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Geraldo Rivera, [and] Charlie Daniels..." Charlie Daniels?
Well, that's where we are. And we might soon be seeing a better way emerge. If nothing else, we should all be happy for Crystal Munoz.
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The problem is she and the other two women were apparently friends in prison with Alice Johnson so there is perceived favoritism. It isn't about them being released early and their clemency but who they knew to obtain their respective "Get of of Jail" cards. That is where the problem lies.
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