Yesterday, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn released his first batch of clemency decisions for 2013.  On this Easter weekend, 222 petitioners will be receiving their decisions, with 87 of them being granted.  The decisions came on petitions that were filed between 2005 through 2012.  The vast majority of executive clemency approvals come in the form of pardons with authorization to expunge their criminal record.

With this latest batch, Governor Quinn has now acted on 2,459 petitions since taking office, granting 929 and denying 1,530.  It’s all part of an ongoing effort by the Governor to overcome the backlog of clemency petitions left over from former Governor Rod Blagojevich.
 
At the Bryant Chavez Law Office, we would like to congratulate those that get to start the next chapter of their lives with a clean slate!  We would also like to commend Governor Quinn for taking action to help them start over.  Unlike some other governors, Governor Quinn has proven that he is willing to grant a fresh start to those who have earned it.

Last week’s Boston Globe featured a good op-ed by Leon Neyfakh about the philosophy behind presidential pardons and a history of their use. The article was prompted by the White House’s recent announcement that President Obama had issued pardons to 17 ex-offenders. This brings the total number of pardons Obama has granted to 39. Neyfakh, like many in academic and legal circles, feels this number is far too low. He says:  “At a moment when the incarceration rate in the United States is near an all-time high, and the experience of living and working with a felony conviction is growing ever more difficult, it’s worth asking whether the president ought to see the pardon power not just as an option but as a duty.”

Some historical pardons Neyfakh points out are:

· 1800: Thomas Jefferson pardoned individuals convicted under the Alien and Sedition Act, which he considered unconstitutional

· 1919: Woodrow Wilson pardoned 500 people convicted under liquor laws, to signal his opposition to Prohibition

· 1960s: John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson reduced the sentences of more than 200 drug offenders convicted under mandatory minimum sentences in the 1956 Narcotics and Control Act

In each of these cases, the president used his pardon power to send a clear policy message that a law was unjust. Each of the laws above was later repealed. Neyfakh comments that in his second term “President Obama could use [pardons] in a similarly principled way, highlighting whole categories of individuals whose lives have been ruined by policies he sees as unjust or unduly harsh—injecting urgency into, say, the national debate over mass incarceration or the disproportionate impact of drug laws on minorities.”

On the state level, we here in Illinois saw the pardon used in such a way not too long ago. In 2003, Governor George Ryan commuted the death sentences of everyone on or waiting to be sent to death row in Illinois. The blanket act affected 167 individuals, who were issued life sentences instead. Ryan saw it important to act to avoid any possibility for a mistaken execution. (13 wrongly convicted death row inmates had recently been exonerated.)  Obama was an Illinois State Senator during this time and is no doubt familiar with these pardons. Only time will tell if Obama chooses to use his pardon power in a similar way before he leaves office.

The White House announced Friday that President Obama has granted pardons to 17 individuals convicted of non-violent federal crimes.  As the Washington Post reports, the successful petitioners “were sentenced years if not decades ago for such minor federal offenses as falsely altering a U.S. money order, possessing an unregistered firearm, embezzling bank funds and acquiring food stamps without authorization.”

Pardons on a federal level do not expunge a crime; the crime remains on the individual’s record. However, the pardon is an act of forgiveness from the President. Receiving a presidential pardon can remove barriers to certain career, financial, and other opportunities. Presidents can issue pardons for incarcerated individuals that include a commutation of sentence, but historically the vast majority of pardons issued have been for individuals who have already served their sentences.

Much like how Governor Quinn receives recommendations from the Illinois Prisoner Review Board that aid in making his state-level pardon decisions, President Obama has the federal Office of the Pardon Attorney that reviews applications. However, in the end it is entirely up to the chief executive whether to approve or deny any given petition. The “Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses” is an authority of the President specifically stated in Article 2, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

These are the first pardon decisions Obama has issued in his second term as President. Previously, he granted nine in December 2010, eight in May 2011 and five in November 2011. Although this total of 39 is much lower than his predecessors—George W. Bush granted 189 pardons in his presidency, while Bill Clinton granted 396—it doesn’t necessarily indicate that acts of clemency will remain rare in his second term. It’s true that presidential pardons can be tricky political territory. Ford’s notorious pardon of Nixon was a public-relations disaster from which he never recovered, and Clinton’s pardon of financier/fugitive/Clinton-campaign-donor Marc Rich was heavily criticized. But so far all of Obama’s decisions have been non-controversial and have received very little media attention. Without a looming re-election battle, perhaps Obama will work his way through more pardon applications in the next few years. It’s a good sign that this first batch comes less than two months into his second term.