Right now, the President granted commutation to 330 people. The President has now granted commutation to a complete of 1,715 people, together with 568 individuals who had been sentenced to life in jail. The overwhelming majority of those women and men are serving unduly lengthy sentences for drug crimes. With in the present day’s motion, the President has granted extra commutations than any president on this nation’s historical past and has surpassed the variety of commutations granted by the previous 13 presidents mixed. The President got down to reinvigorate clemency, and he has carried out simply that.
In 2014, the President directed officers on the Division of Justice to undertake an formidable effort: encourage federal inmates serving sentences imposed beneath outdated legal guidelines to use for clemency. With help from the Clemency Challenge 2014 and volunteer attorneys all through the nation, federal inmates utilized for clemency in staggering numbers. The Deputy Lawyer Basic and the Pardon Lawyer – and their respective workplaces – labored vigorously to evaluate these functions. Lower than three years later, the President has now granted commutation to greater than 1,700 people, the overwhelming majority of whom have been serving sentences beneath outdated and overly harsh drug sentencing legal guidelines. Many of those people have been assisted by Clemency Challenge 2014, and lots of might be assisted by the Stanford Justice Advocacy Challenge of their reentry efforts. The President’s imaginative and prescient couldn’t have been realized with out this help.
To the President’s 1,715 commutation recipients and 212 pardon recipients – you will have been granted a second likelihood as a result of the President sees the potential in you. After reviewing every of your tales, the President concluded that you’ve got taken substantial steps to treatment your previous errors and that you’re deserving of a second likelihood. You and your tales have been important to the President’s profitable train of his clemency authority. Tales of rehabilitation and development, of households reunited, and lives rotated – these are the tales that reveal why our nation is a nation of second probabilities. As the President has written to you, your instance will affect whether or not somebody in related circumstances will get his or her personal second likelihood sooner or later. Make the President proud with how you utilize your second likelihood.
Neil Eggleston is Counsel to the President.