President Obama Commutes 102 More Prison Sentences

By Jeralyn, Section Inmates and Prisons
Posted on Thu Oct 06, 2016 at 09:08:26 PM EST
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President Obama today commuted the sentences of 102 inmates, bringing the number of commutations this year to 590 and 774 in total during his presidency. Here are their names and a brief description of their original sentences.

President Obama granted clemency to 102 inmates on Thursday, as he continues to release federal inmates serving long prison terms for nonviolent drug offenses. Obama has now commuted the sentences of 774 federal inmates, more than the previous 11 presidents combined.

With 590 commutations this year, the president has commuted more individuals’ sentences in one year than in any single year in U.S. history, White House officials said.

Obama's approval ratings are at the highest level of his second term. [More...]

President Obama’s approval ratings have hit 55 percent, marking the highest point in his second term and continuing a seventh-month stretch in which more than half the country has approved of him.

...Compared to this time last year, support from Obama among Democrats has increased by 12 points, now steady at 89 percent. With independents, he’s up 14 points to a 56 percent approval rating, but has only increased 2 percent among Republicans, hovering at 13 percent.

Quite a contrast with former President GW Bush during his final months in office:

Obama’s overall rating puts him on par with former President Ronald Reagan, whose ratings exceeded 60 percent after George H. W. Bush was elected president in November of 1988. George W. Bush, on the other hand, saw his ratings drop to lows of 27 percent during the final months of his presidency.

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President Obama Commutes 102 More Prison Sentences | 4 comments (4 topical)

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Another 102 casualties (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by Peter G on Fri Oct 07, 2016 at 02:00:35 PM EST

of the "war on drugs" have received some relief from their wounds. I just finished reading down the list. Dozens of absurdly long sentences reduced to very long sentences. E.g., life reduced to 20 or 30 years. Twenty or 30 year sentences reduced to ten or so. (One of my former clients is on yesterday's list. His sentence was reduced from 20 years (a mandatory minimum) to 15, which will expire two years from now. Good for him, but no windfall.) Few of the reduced sentences are to time-served; many are adjusted to expire two years from now, conditioned on successful participation in the Bureau of Prisons' "residential drug treatment program," which is generally regarded as their only good/effective program. A modest, conservative approach to exercising the pardon power ... very Obama-ish. (Way more than any other recent President has done, I should mention.) And yet, I'm sure he'll be baselessly attacked for setting free hordes of dangerous criminals.

The prison industrial complex opines: (none / 0) (#5)
by Mr Natural on Fri Oct 07, 2016 at 08:07:04 PM EST

National Sheriffs' Association Executive Director, Jonathan Thompson, said America's sheriffs are very disappointed in the action.
"In this case, the rule of law has been devalued, and the decisions of judges and juries have no weight to this administration," Thompson said. "All of the hard work of law enforcement and the criminal justice system to bring these individuals to justice was for not."

Dunno about the justice system but it's clear that the work of at least one reporter's English teachers was - for naught.


: No decision of any jury (5.00 / 2) (#6)
by Peter G on Fri Oct 07, 2016 at 08:11:10 PM EST

is implicated in a sentence commutation in any way. And many of the unjust sentences commuted by the President were mandatory minimums, forced by Congress on unwilling judges who frequently lament their inappropriateness to individual cases while at the same time complying with their oaths by formally imposing those sentences. The sheriffs know naught of which they spake.

site violator (none / 0) (#2)
by fishcamp on Fri Oct 07, 2016 at 07:55:00 AM EST