President Biden pardoned 39 people and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 others on Thursday, a sweeping move that followed pressure from criminal justice advocates over his son Hunter Biden’s surprise pardon.
The White House billed that it had set a modern daily record for the number of people affected. This includes those serving home confinement since the COVID-19 pandemic and non-violent offenders.
President Biden also vowed to “take further steps in the coming weeks” as his administration continues to consider clemency requests and there is just a month left in his term in the White House.
Here are five things you should know about moving:
Biden’s move hits a modern daily record
The flood of clemency requests to more than 1,500 Americans is the highest ever issued in one day, the White House said, and comes after Biden faced recent criticism for failing to keep up with the clemency numbers of his predecessors.
Trump pardoned 144 Americans and commuted 94 sentences in his first term. According to statistics from the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. Former President Obama — under whose administration Biden served as vice president — granted 212 pardons and a whopping 1,715 commutations during his two terms in office.
Biden’s pardon actions this week give him a total of 65 pardons and more than 1,600 commutations, surpassing Trump’s commutation numbers and approaching Obama’s, with several weeks left in his single term.
The president also hinted in his statement that further clemency or criminal action could be planned in his final weeks as president.
39 pardons
Biden’s pardons only apply to non-violent offenders, many of them for drug offenses.
Some, like 79-year-old James Russell Stidd of Groveport, Ohio, had pleaded guilty to a nonviolent felony at age 20.
Many of those pardoned are considered “upstanding” community members in their neighborhoods.
James Edgar Yarbrough, 79, received a Purple Heart for his service in the Air Force, from which he was honorably discharged.
Some, like Shannon Rae Faulkner, 56, continued their education after serving their sentences. Today, Faulkner works as a counselor and recovery coach with female trauma victims and people with disabilities.
While a pardon does not erase the crime from the record, it does restore civil liberties and helps alleviate the stigma of a federal conviction. According to DOJ statistics, Biden had issued 26 pardons before Thursday, including pardoning his son earlier this month.
1,499 graces
Biden’s modern commutations will reduce the prison sentences of nearly 1,500 Americans, although it is unclear at this point by how much.
His commutations focused on Americans who have been serving sentences at home for at least a year under the pandemic-era Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, a 2020 law that allowed extended home confinement for certain prisoners, said the White House.
The affected people have since “successfully reintegrated into their families and communities and shown that they deserve a second chance,” Biden said in his statement. The White House also noted that they have demonstrated their commitment to rehabilitation by securing jobs and supporting their education.
Biden emphasized that many of the hundreds of Americans affected by the modern commutations would receive lower sentences “if charged under today’s laws, policies and practices.”
According to DOJ statistics, Biden had made 135 commutations before Thursday’s announcement.
Although advocates largely responded with praise to the recent wave of clemency requests, they stressed that there is still much work to be done.
Lauren-Brooke Eisen, executive director of the Brennan Center’s justice program, called Thursday’s move “an important recognition of the overly punitive nature of our criminal justice system.” but calls again that Biden commute the sentences of the more than 40 people on death row.
After anger at Hunter comes mercy
The outgoing president’s latest pardons and pardons come after years of pressure from criminal justice advocates to provide more leniency before he leaves office. But those voices grew louder after Biden made the bombshell decision to pardon his son vowed repeatedly that he wouldn’t do it.
This pardon sparked edged criticism from both sides – with Republicans calling for the move an abuse of the justice systemand Democrats feared reversing his earlier promise not to issue the pardon was a political gift to Trump.
But it also led to this a wave of modern and renewed calls that the Commander-in-Chief extend forgiveness to other groups, including nonviolent offenders and prisoners facing the death penalty. Some even suggested that Biden should do so Forgive Trump’s supposed enemies to protect them when he takes office.
Activists particularly highlighted the inequities Black Americans face in the justice system and argued that Biden has a responsibility to address them employ his grace power to compensate for injustices. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and outgoing Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) were among the progressive voices that ousted Biden from Capitol Hill.
Pressley praised Biden’s actions Thursday but added that he could do more.
“With 39 days remaining in his presidency, President Biden has the power to continue to use his clemency powers to transform and save the lives of many, many other Americans behind the wall,” Pressley said in a statement. “It’s the right thing to do, it’s moral and it’s a matter of heritage.”
Pressley expressed particular concern about the 40 people on death row, as well as elderly, disabled or ill people serving their sentences.
Mosby has been removed from the pardon list
Although Biden’s actions have been praised by some progressive Democrats, Biden’s pardons leave out certain people who have been touted as pardon prospects, such as former Baltimore Democratic prosecutor Marilyn Mosby, who was convicted of mortgage fraud and perjury earlier this year .
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, civil rights attorney Ben Crump, Rev. Al Sharpton and activist Angela Rye have all called on Biden to pardon Mosby, who they said was a political target of former President Trump.
In a letter to Biden just days after he pardoned his son, Crump and Rye urged Biden to consider pardoning Mosby.
(*5*) they wrote.
“We welcome a conversation with President Biden to discuss ways we can use his pardon power to free those ‘others’ who also deserve justice.”
On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) also called on Biden to pardon Mosby.
“President Biden needs to evaluate these things on a case-by-case basis, but at the same time go as big as possible and also look at examples of aggressive prosecutions related to people like Marilyn Mosby,” Jeffries said on MSNBC’s “The Reid Out.”
Although Mosby’s name was conspicuously absent from the 39 pardoned, Crump still praised Biden’s actions, calling it a “historic step toward second chances and reducing sentencing inequality.”
“Marilyn Mosby should be next!” Crump added.
Updated December 13 at 9:19 a.m. EST
