{"id":13556,"date":"2008-11-17T10:09:05","date_gmt":"2008-11-17T17:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/11\/17\/craving-pardon.html"},"modified":"2014-11-10T16:17:35","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T23:17:35","slug":"craving_pardon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/11\/17\/craving_pardon.html","title":{"rendered":"Craving pardon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe they know something that we don’t, i.e., that there’s a load of presidential pardons likely to happen<\/a>, so now’s the time to jump on the gravy train. Or whatever train gets you out of jail.<\/p>\n

\n

More than 2,300 people applied for a pardon or commutation in fiscal 2008, which ended Sept. 30, the largest number for any single year since at least 1900, according to Justice Department Statistics. The unprecedented number of applications and the lengthy time needed to make final decisions have led to a backlog of more than 2,000 pending clemency applications.<\/p>\n

[…] A number of high-profile felons have already sought clemency, among them Michael Milken, the junk-bond king and financier convicted of securities fraud in 1990; John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban; Randy “Duke” Cunningham, the former California congressman who was convicted of tax evasion; and Edwin Edwards, the former governor of Louisiana convicted in 2000 of racketeering, according to the Justice Department.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Evidently, Dubya has been very lean on the pardons to date, issuing the fewest since WWII of any president except his father. <\/p>\n

\n

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment other than to refer to 2001 congressional testimony from Roger Adams, the former pardon attorney.<\/p>\n

In that testimony, Adams said the office’s “initial investigative step,” when reviewing commutation applications, was to read an applicant’s pre-sentencing report, judgment of convictions and prison progress report.<\/p>\n

In a recent court affidavit, a pardon office official said the office reviewed those documents in “many cases,” which Love described as a “change in policy.”<\/p>\n

“The Department of Justice has basically closed down the pardon program for all intents and purposes for meaningful release of ordinary people,” she said. “I don’t think any substantive thought is given to the issues raised by the people who are applying.”<\/p>\n

The backlog in applications, according to Love, is a result of the tough-on-crime attitude of the 1980s, including the explosion in drug cases, mandatory-minimum sentencing laws and the abolition of parole. Bush has received 7,707 petitions for a reduced prison sentence, nearly six times the number received by President Ronald Reagan.<\/p>\n

Several outside experts and government officials said presidents often see little political upside, and a lot of risk, in granting pardons.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The real pardon question is whether Bush will sign a “get out of jail free” card preemptively for folks in his Administration, past and\/or present. Legal experts paint that as problematic, but that hardly means it’s undoable.<\/p>\n

\n

Among those who’ve raised the preemptive pardon issue is Harold Krent, the dean of the Chicago-Kent School of Law, who studies presidential power. But he said it would be difficult to issue a blanket amnesty to administration officials without defining in some way the extent of the possibly illegal activity. “You would almost have to say that a person was tortured in order to absolve somebody of the torture,” he said.<\/p>\n

Unlike other controversial pardons, Krent said the extent of any potential illegal activity in the Bush Administration is not known. “We, as a society, lose the benefit from the closure and mere transparency that comes through a criminal trial,” he said.<\/p>\n

A White House spokesman would not comment on whether preemptive pardons were under consideration.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wow. That’s certainly a less-than-convincing non-denial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe they know something that we don’t, i.e., that there’s a load of presidential pardons likely to happen, so now’s the time to jump on the gravy train. Or whatever…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[715,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-punishment","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":134451,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/26\/pardons-commutations-oh-yeah-first-arguments.html","url_meta":{"origin":13556,"position":0},"title":"On Pardons and Commutations and “Oh Yeah, He Did It First!” arguments","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 26-Aug-17 2:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite slipstreaming the Joe Arpaio pardon into a Friday night news dump that includes a major natural disaster, it's still engendered a fair amount of comment. I wanted to pull over into one of my own posts a couple of lengthy comments I wrote elsewhere, because otherwise I will never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/joe-arpaio-donald-trump-01-ap-jc-170801_4x3_9925B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/joe-arpaio-donald-trump-01-ap-jc-170801_4x3_9925B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/joe-arpaio-donald-trump-01-ap-jc-170801_4x3_9925B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":134484,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/28\/tweetizen-trump-2017-08-28-others-said.html","url_meta":{"origin":13556,"position":1},"title":"Tweetizen Trump – 2017-08-28: “As Others Have Said”","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 28-Aug-17 9:15am","format":false,"excerpt":"Things continue to look bad along the Gulf, Donald -- and, to be fair, you continue tweeting about it. Let's hope that an analysis of all the actions the federal government has taken and will take around this disaster show as much robust activity as your tweeting has. In the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/trump%2Bmeme%2Bmother%2Bteresa.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/trump%2Bmeme%2Bmother%2Bteresa.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/trump%2Bmeme%2Bmother%2Bteresa.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5841,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/07\/10\/the_list_is_lef.html","url_meta":{"origin":13556,"position":2},"title":"The list is left","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 10-Jul-04 10:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Florida is scrapping its much-condemned \"These May Be Felons So Consider Not Letting Them Vote List\" -- though not because of its inaccuracies, but because it left off Hispanic felons....","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2004"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2004","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2004"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10757,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/07\/05\/scooting.html","url_meta":{"origin":13556,"position":3},"title":"Scooting","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 5-Jul-07 8:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"The more I keep pondering on the whole Scooter Libby \"clemency,\" the more it keeps irking. I have to quote from a Kung Fu Monkey link Marn\u00a0cited\u00a0commented in my original...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2008"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2008","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2008"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48867,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/10\/so-one-last-probably-not-word-on-torture.html","url_meta":{"origin":13556,"position":4},"title":"So one last (probably not) word on torture","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Dec-14 10:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"And last(ish) because you're probably sick to death about reading it from me, and I'm sick to death (and at heart) about writing about it. Because today I've not only been posting the stuff I have, I've been on a half-dozen other threads in the comments, arguing with people who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2265,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/07\/18\/brotherly_love.html","url_meta":{"origin":13556,"position":5},"title":"Brotherly love","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 18-Jul-02 2:47pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A New Republic article on the largess heaped on Florida -- and, thus, on Jeb Bush's constituents -- by Dubya. In 2000, when Hillary Clinton ran for the Senate in...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47895,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13556\/revisions\/47895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}