Today, Barack Obama freed 46 inmates under his authority to do so. Here is the list. Here is the letter they receive. with his signature.
From the DoJ’s Deputy Attorney General as published by Washington Post: ‘More than 35,000 inmates are seeking clemency, but a complicated review process has slowed the Obama administration’s initiative. In February, Obama commuted the sentences of 22 drug offenders, the largest batch of prisoners to be granted early release under his administration and the first group of inmates who applied after the new criteria were set.
“Certainly, I don’t think I can ever be accused of being soft on crime,” Yates said. “But we need to be using the limited resources we have to ensure that we are truly doing justice and that the sentences we’re meting out are just and proportional to the crimes that we’re charging.”
“We’re not the Department of Prosecutions or even the Department of Public Safety,” Yates said. “We are the Department of Justice.”
Enter the Clemency Project and Barack Obama having it both ways with a lottery system.
“Obama said that he had “revamped” the Office of the Pardon Attorney, and promised to be “more aggressive” with his clemency powers.
But memos from the White House obtained by USA TODAY revealed a different story. President Obama would “very rarely, if ever grant pardons for major drug offenses and guns crimes,” said one memo, and during his first 18-months in office, the President knowingly and deliberately allowed the Bush Administration’s clemency policies to remain in effect.”
Clemency Project 2014 – a working group composed of lawyers and advocates including the Federal Defenders, the American Civil Liberties Union, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the American Bar Association, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, as well as individuals active within those organizations – launched in January after Deputy Attorney General James Cole asked the legal profession to provide pro bono (free) assistance to federal prisoners who would likely have received a shorter sentenced if they had been sentenced today. Clemency Project 2014 members collaborate to recruit and train attorneys on how to screen for prisoners who meet the criteria listed below and assist prisoners who meet the criteria to find lawyers to represent them. Clemency Project 2014 lawyers provide assistance free of charge to applicants. Anyone asking you to pay is not working with Clemency Project 2014.
WASHINGTON – Deputy Attorney General James Cole announced today a new set of criteria the Justice Department and White House will use when considering clemency petitions from federal prisoners. The new criteria will help the Justice Department identify federal prisoners who, if sentenced today under current sentencing laws and policies, would likely have received a substantially lower sentence.
“Our federal sentencing laws have shattered families and wasted millions of dollars,” said Vanita Gupta, ACLU deputy legal director. “Too many people—particularly people of color—have been locked up for far too long for nonviolent offenses. The President now has a momentous opportunity to correct these injustices in individual cases. If we’re ever going to see truly systemic and smart reform of the federal criminal justice, however, we need Congress to step up and pass the Smarter Sentencing Act.”
Clemency Project 2014, a working group composed of the Federal Defenders, the American Civil Liberties Union, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the American Bar Association, and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, as well as individuals active within those organizations, wholeheartedly supports Cole’s announcement and the Justice Department’s plans to restore the integrity of the clemency process.
