President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic, and he also pardoned 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes. It is the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
The commutations announced Thursday are for people who have served home confinement sentences for at least a year after their release. Prisons have been uniquely bad at spreading the virus, and some prisoners were released in part to stop the spread of the virus. At one point, 1 in 5 prisoners had COVID-19, according to an Associated Press tally.
Biden said he will take further steps in the coming weeks and will continue to review clemency requests. The second-largest single-day pardons were by Barack Obama, with 330, shortly before leaving office in 2017.
“America was built on the promise of possibilities and second chances.” Biden said in a statement. “As President, I have the great honor to extend mercy to people who have shown remorse and rehabilitation, restore the opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and take steps to eliminate sentencing disparities for nonviolent offenders, especially those convicted of drug crimes.”
The pardon comes after a wide-ranging pardon for his son Hunter, who was tried for weapons and tax crimes. Biden is under pressure from advocacy groups to pardon wide swaths of people, including those on federal death row, before the Trump administration takes office in January. He is also considering whether to issue preemptive pardons to those who investigated Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and face potential retaliation when he takes office.
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White House lawyers said the people pardoned on Thursday were convicted of non-violent crimes such as drug crimes and turned their lives upside down. Among them is a woman who led emergency response teams during natural disasters; A church deacon who worked as an addiction counselor and youth counselor; PhD student in Molecular Biosciences; A military veteran.
The president had previously issued 122 commutations and 21 pardons. He also issued broad pardons to those convicted of using and possessing marijuana on federal land and in the District of Columbia, and to former U.S. service members convicted of violating the now-rescinded military ban on consensual same-sex sex.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and 34 other lawmakers are urging the president to pardon environmental and human rights attorney Steven Donziger, who has been jailed or under house arrest for three years on a contempt of court charge related to his work representing indigenous farmers in a lawsuit against Chevron.
Others are calling for Biden to commute the sentences of inmates on federal death row. Attorney General Merrick Garland temporarily halted federal executions. Biden said during his 2020 campaign that he wanted to end the death penalty but never did so, and now, with Trump back in office, executions will likely resume. During his first term, Trump oversaw an unprecedented number of federal executions, carried out during the height of the pandemic.
More pardons will be issued before Biden leaves office on January 20, but it is not clear whether he will take measures to protect against possible prosecution by Trump, an untested use of power. The president had been taking the idea seriously and considering it for up to six months — before the presidential election — but was concerned about the precedent it would set, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press. On the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions.
But those who receive pardon must accept it. Freshman California Sen. Adam Schiff, who was chairman of the congressional panel that investigated the violent Jan. 6 insurrection, said such a pardon from Biden would be “unnecessary” and that the president should not spend his final days in office. Worrying about this.
The president has the power to pardon, whereby a person is absolved from guilt and punishment, or to commutate, which reduces or eliminates punishment but does not absolve wrongdoing. It is common for a president to grant mercy at the end of his term, using the power of his office to expunge records or end prison terms.
Before pardoning his son, Biden repeatedly pledged not to do so. In a statement explaining his retraction, he said that the prosecution had been poisoned by politics. The decision prompted criminal justice advocates and lawmakers to put additional public pressure on the administration to use the same authority with ordinary Americans. It was not a very popular move. Only about 2 in 10 Americans approved of his decision, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
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