Tag: clemency

President Obama today commuted 214 more federal sentences, bringing his total to 564, more than the previous 9 presidents combined.

67 of today's commutations went to those serving life sentences with no chance of release. To date, he has commuted 197 life sentences. (Some were commuted to 30 years, not time served.)

Here's the DOJ announcement about Obama's most recent sentence commutations with names and case details.

Here is Obama's statistical record on pardons and commutations, from the Office of the Pardon Attorney, updated through Dec. 4, 2015.

Here is the list of all pardons granted by Obama from 2009 through 2015.

Here is the list of all commutations granted by Obama from 2009 to 2015.

How has he compared to GW Bush? The Bush list of pardons is here, and list of commutations here.

On Monday, the Justice Department announced it would soon be implementing new and broader criteria for drug offenders seeking clemency.

Today, the Justice Department announced the new criteria. It is a welcome sea change:

The Justice Department is encouraging nonviolent federal inmates who have behaved in prison, have no significant criminal history and have already served more than 10 years behind bars to apply for clemency, officials announced Wednesday.

The new criteria:

• They are currently serving a federal sentence in prison and, by operation of law, likely would have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted of the same offense(s) today;
• They are non-violent, low-level offenders without significant ties to large scale criminal organizations, gangs or cartels;
• They have served at least 10 years of their prison sentence;
• They do not have a significant criminal history;
• They have demonstrated good conduct in prison; and
• They have no history of violence prior to or during their current term of imprisonment.

Thank you Obama Administration. This is what change looks like. [More...]

Former Arkansas Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is taking a lot of heat these days over his clemency decisions while Governor -- particularly that of Wayne Dumond. Huckabee's latest statement, released today, is here.

This is a complicated tale. For the facts of the Dumond - Ashley Stevens rape case, and why Huckabee might have had doubts about Dumond's guilt, based on problems with the scientific evidence and Stevens' identification of Dumond, there's no better source than the appellate court opinions on the case. Here are four of them:

• January, 1988
• January, 1989
• September, 1989
• August, 1990

TalkLeft contributor Last Night in Little Rock also known as John Wesley Hall, was Wayne Dumond's post-conviction attorney. In addition to seeking post-conviction relief in the state courts, John represented Dumond in his federal habeas actions, the pre-Huckabee clemency request and in the civil case against Sheriff Coolidge Conlee, who displayed Dumond's castrated testicles on a jar on his desk. John obtained a $150,000.00 verdict for Dumond for the tort of outrage. The Sheriff later died in prison while serving his own 20 year sentence for extortion, gambling and other crimes. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9/26/96, available on Lexis.com)

An interview with John about Dumond's sentence commutation and clemency, the roles of former Lt. Gov. Tucker, Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee, Dumond's castration and his thoughts on Dumond's original rape conviction, from evidentiary doubts to the sentence disparity, follows: