JUST ANOTHER PLEA FOR MERCY AND COMPASSION FROM BIDEN

 WHERE IS THE MERCY AND COMPASSION 

Today the Office of the Pardon Attorney hosted an event - The Case for Second Chances.  There were powerful stories of redemption from those who had received mercy and compassion.  

There was an irony that was palpable throughout the event.  Where is the mercy and compassion of the Biden administration.  Presently there are over 17,000 petitions in the Pardon Attorney's office asking for clemency and pardons.  Additionally, the population of the the Bureau of Prisons has increased every year of the Biden Administration.  

The time for action is now.  

https://www.justice.gov/opa/video/case-second-chances-conversation-about-criminal-justice-collateral-consequences-and

WHERE IS BIDEN'S MERCY?

 

The best way to evaluate the state of mercy and compassion in our criminal justice system is to look at the number of people who are incarcerated.  I will look at this from the perspective of people incarcerated in Federal Prison. 

There is an abundance of commentary and literature comparing the level of mercy by presidential administration.  Which administration was most responsible for sentencing reform.  This is an attempt to look at the prison population of various administrations.

During the Nixon administration the number of people in Federal Prison was around 25,000.  It remained there throughout the Ford and Carter administration.  In the 1980s the federal prison population began to rise and did not stop till the 5th year of the Obama administration when it reached over 219,000.  

The question that should be asked is – was there less crime or was the criminal code simpler and more straight forward.  The implications are obvious, the criminal justice system is a very large part of the national budget. This discussion has nothing to do with interpretation of the law or case law.  It's about the expansion of the criminal justice system and the impact it has had on freedom.  

This is about the governments power to take freedom and assets from citizens.  It is about an expansion of government expenditures, it is about a larger and larger per cent of the population being paid to arrest, investigate, prosecute and house citizens for breaking the law, paying enormous amounts to multiple industries that now depend on government contracts that supply the BOP.   It is about the expansion of the criminal code. It is about nonviolent people who find themselves in an 8x10 cell for decades that has cost tax payers billions of dollars.

To be continued.

THE PARDON ATTORNEY AND SECOND CHANCES

 

There are 14,039 commutation petitions waiting in the pardon attorney's office.  There are 3,557 petitions for pardons waiting for the president's signature.  This means over 17,000 people are waiting for the compassion and mercy of the Biden Administration.  Granting pardons to people who have never been incarcerated and clemency to those already on home confinement is not bold and is not mercy.  

It is true that President Biden made a pardon  announcement for 6,000 people with charges of marijuana possession only.  It needs to be noted that this announcement of Pardon's did not release one person from Federal Prison. 

He also granted commutations to around 80 people.  Most all of these people had previously been released to home confinement.

Since the end of 2020 the federal prison population has been steadily increasing and now there are over 159,000 people in the BOP.  Where are the grants of clemency to people who are actually living behind bars?

This is from Doug Berman's blog - Sentencing Law and Policy

 A helpful reader altered me to an event, called "A Celebration of Second Chances," that the Office of the Pardon Attorney is hosting in honor of Second Chance month. This program will be livestreamed at this link tomorrow, Friday, April 21, 2023, at 10:00 am EDT. The email I received flagging the celebration event described it this way:  

The event will feature opening remarks by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke and a panel of speakers who will discuss the impact of second chances through clemency.  Speakers will include Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite, Jr., former Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, and the Honorable Alexander Williams, Jr., and clemency recipients Danielle Metz, Norman Brown, and Evans Ray.  The event will also honor special guests who have received clemency from President Biden and his predecessors or who have received other forms of second-chance relief.

BIDEN'S PARDONS

 

PARDONS THAT RELEASE NO ONE FROM PRISON ARE STILL UNAVAILABLE TO   ANYONE

It's time for President Biden to act on his promise.  That would be granting the pardons he announced.  In the interest of mercy, compassion and integrity he needs to grant clemency to all nonviolent marijuana offenders serving egregious sentences in Federal Prison.  This should be an easy call.   

It's time for the Department of Justice to deliver the pardon certificates that President Biden promised last fall.

 

The President announced the issuance of marijuana-specific pardons on October 6, 2022 as part of a widely supported set of actions recognizing the folly of federal cannabis prohibition. Thousands of people with federal criminal records for simple marijuana possession are eligible for a pardon that would help them obtain employment, housing, education, and more.

 

Unfortunately, more than three months later, the Department of Justice pardon website indicates that the applications to obtain a pardon certificate are still unavailable.

Norml's discussion of this Presidential authority.

RULE OF LAW - WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

I wrote this many years ago and put it on the web site for my brother, John Knock.  I just came across it and decided that my feelings about the sentiment are the same. 

In 1965, I was an idealistic graduate student. It was an exciting time with Michael Harrington's culture of poverty, the beginning of the Welfare Rights Movement, the civil Rights Movement and the dark cloud of Viet Nam as a back drop. The rights of the individual were magnified by these MOVEMENTS AND CHILDREN OF THE 60S looked to the Federal Government to define, bestow and preserve the same. An activist court was cheered and legislation to regulate human behavior was warmly welcomed. Bobby Kennedy's pursuit of the scoundrels of organized crime would remove a cancer from our country. Rico, conspiracy and mandatory minimums were on their way.

Forty years later I still strive to understand the individual's relationship to the state and how there can be a relationship that maintains freedom through the "Rule of Law". Waves of nausea now overcome me when I hear the phrase.

We now have one third of our citizens who have interfaced with the criminal justice complex. Rural communities hope there will be a need for more prisons and vie for them to be built in their community. Prisons are considered economic development. Many federal, State and Local Government jobs are dependent on the growth of our prison population. As more and more men and women are interfacing with the court system, the rule of law is a labyrinth of conflict and contradiction.

This contract between the governed and the state becomes unfathomable. Just as unfathomable is some consensus about what individual rights are. Case law piles on in volumes, and contradictory and minutely parsed decisions leave defendants without a clear understanding of process. Additionally they are required to use the services of an army of attorneys and advocates of various abilities and ethics. The financial resources of their families are sucked into the black hole of our criminal justice system.

If forfeitable assets are part of the bounty of the state, defense attorneys must defend their clients by walking on eggs, fearful that they may also be prosecuted. This further compromises the rights of the defendant. Many defendants must make plea agreements to things they knew little or nothing about because they have no resources. Even those with ample resources plea to avoid the almost certain conviction, and harsher sentence. Grand Juries are now used to investigate, rather than to decide if there is probable cause to indict.

Split decisions with carefully parsed nuances send hopes and money into this abys.
It must be noted that each individual caught in this web has children, parents, brothers and sisters who love them and are also disillusioned, confounded, and perhaps bitter about resources expended on a system that is so confounding yet has the power to take away the future of so many families.

How did we become so fearful of freedom that we have insisted on laws that criminalize so much human behavior and even thought? We now routinely convict people of crimes that never took place, in places the defendant has never been, with people they do not know and incidentally, the criminal act was instigated by law enforcement. The rest of the world disdains us and developing countries reject our rule of law. We investigate people who have not broken the law to prevent lawlessness. Our law enforcement is becoming lawless. Our rule of law is too voluminous and therefore arbitrary. Even the language, War on Crime, belies the rule of law. Our justice system uses the metaphors of war, and the object is the citizens whose part of the covenant is to give consent.

Brilliant trial and appellate attorneys arguing cases and judges deciding them are thrilling to read and even more so to watch. Their memory and critical thought is as sharp and shining as a mirror shattering. To me it is also as frightening as it would be to walk bare foot across the broken glass.

As I watch Justice Bryer and Justice Scalia have conversations about decisions and interpretations, I long for something more absolute. Something more absolute would-be language that is clear, simple and true. How can a man's life and liberty depend on nuances culled from thousands and thousands of pages of case law with the reasonable possibility of a single sentence or concept on one of those pages becoming determinative. Too much law turns "Rule of Law" into rule of men.

What would Aristotle think of our rule of law? What would our founding fathers see? We have constant imposition and enforcement of arbitrary and restrictive values imposed on us by an over active legislative branch. These are interpreted and judged by a judiciary system that seems to be well aware of the fact that the governed can no longer know the rules of the covenant they are part of. I just fear for our freedoms.

I know there is logic and order in the process, but the sheer magnitude and complexity of the possibilities invites subjectivity.

Beth Cutis