Dem
47
GOP
53
Yesterday, not too many days removed from pardoning his son, Joe Biden issued 39 pardons and 1,499 commutations. All of the pardons were for non-violent offenders, all of the commutations were for people who qualified for home confinement during the pandemic, and had served out their sentences.
This is being reported as the "biggest single-day act of clemency" in U.S. history. That is true, although it requires drawing a distinction between "clemency" and "amnesty." Acts of clemency are specific to the individual, which means that the White House released a list of 1,538 different names yesterday, treating each as a distinct case. Acts of amnesty cover anyone and everyone who committed whatever offense is being pardoned. For example, George Washington granted amnesty to several thousand participants in the Whiskey Rebellion, a whole bunch of presidents (John Adams, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Calvin Coolidge) gave amnesty to the deserters of various wars, Lincoln and Andrew Johnson both gave amnesty to various groups of Confederates, Gerald Ford gave amnesty to more than 20,000 Vietnam-era draft dodgers and Jimmy Carter extended that to more than 100,000 additional draft dodgers.
In any event, the United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. And if you just count Western, industrialized democracies, then the U.S. laps the field, with well more than double the rate in #2 Turkey, and well more than quadruple the rate in places like France, the U.K., Italy, Germany, and... Canada. This suggests to us that something is broken; either it's too easy to get convicted of a crime, or the sentences are too harsh, or both.
In any event, 1,538 people now get a clean slate—good for them. That said, they represent the low-hanging fruit, as most of them had already completed their terms. If Biden really wants to roll up his sleeves, he'll take a look at cases where a miscarriage of justice is strongly indicated. The White House promised that more pardons are coming; we look forward to seeing what that means. (Z)