Presidential pardon ... it's not just for turkeys! (Larry Downing/Reuters)
From the AP:
President Barack Obama on Monday pardoned five people convicted of charges ranging from intent to distribute marijuana to running an illegal gambling business.
And he issued his first commutation, ordering the release of a woman next month after serving 10 years on a 22-year sentence for cocaine distribution.
The actions mark Obama's third set of pardons. He pardoned eight people earlier this year, and issued nine pardons in December 2010.
Some of you might remember my hard but absolutely fair criticism of President Obama's previously rather timid use of the pardon power. This year he has seriously stepped his game up, issuing his second group of pardons this year.
A few things are notable about these pardons:
- It isn't Christmas. President Obama is returning to the historical tradition of issuing pardons when they cross his desk, rather than at times most politically convenient.
- The crimes are serious. What I really liked about these pardons is that it appears the president reached down in the stack a bit to get some regular folks. Since the "War on Crime" era, presidents have largely pardoned people convicted of minor, rather insignificant offenses or their politically connected buddies. These pardons are all of real people who have gambling, marijuana and other drug war convictions.
- There is a commutation! Perhaps the best possible news is that President Obama has actually released someone from jail:
Obama commuted the 2001 prison sentence of Eugenia Marie Jennings of Alton, Ill. Jennings was convicted in 2001 for distributing cocaine, and sentenced to 22 years in prison. The president ordered her to be released next month, but kept intact her eight years of supervised release.
The pardon power was given a very bad name after Ford pardoned Nixon. Since then, politicians have put their own political interests above the capacity to show mercy. It has gotten so warped and twisted, presidents and governors now pride themselves on how little mercy they are willing to demonstrate.
But mercy is what the pardon power was all about from the very beginning. In England, the monarch's pardon power is called the "prerogative of mercy." It is literally called mercy! The Founding Fathers wanted to keep this power in their own new constitution and bestowed it on the president without any check whatsoever. Finally, we have a president willing to use it properly.
As Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount:
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Bravo, Mr. President!