Federal clemency news and notes
Federal clemency is in the news a bit this week. For example, this New York Times article about the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear former Illinois Gov. George Ryan’s appeal of his federal conviction reports that “his lawyer said he would probably seek a commutation from President Bush of what is left of his more-than-six-year federal prison sentence.”
Relatedly, among lots of great new stuff at Pardon Power is coverage of this interesting Washington Post piece about the job facing the new federal Pardon Attorney. Here are snippets from the article:
President Bush named [Ronald L.] Rodgers last month to head the Justice Department’s pardon office, a unit that has suffered under substantial backlogs after its previous leader was accused of mismanagement and of making racially offensive statements.
Rodgers inherited a stack of nearly 2,000 requests for pardons and commutations of prison sentences in the waning months of the president’s administration, a time when pressure to exercise the clemency power intensifies. “If there’s ever been a time when the pardon attorney should have an impact, this is it,” said P.S. Ruckman Jr., an associate professor at Rock Valley College in Illinois who studies clemency patterns.
Rodgers, a Naval Academy graduate who had worked in a drug intelligence unit at Justice since 1999, declined interview requests. But department spokesman Erik Ablin said that the pardon office is on a “record-setting pace” for receiving clemency petitions this year. About half a dozen lawyers assist Rodgers in the small office, Ablin said….
Lawyers who represent clients seeking pardons and scholars who research clemency said they do not expect Bush, who has granted few such requests as president and in his previous role as Texas governor, to do an about-face during his last months in office. For one thing, they said, the controversy over last-minute pardons granted by President Bill Clinton, including a pass for fugitive financier Marc Rich, lingers. The Rich decision touched off congressional investigations and a public relations firestorm.
Rodgers’s law-and-order background also may influence the process. H. Abbie Erler, a professor at Kenyon College in Ohio, pointed out that Rodgers’s record as a former military official and longtime investigator in the narcotics area may not make him amenable to granting mercy to convicted felons. “That sort of sets the tone,” said Erler, who wrote a recent study about the factors that contribute to pardon grants.
Bush has pardoned 157 people and commuted the sentences of six more since 2001, according to Justice Department statistics. The majority of the cases involve offenders who committed relatively minor drug violations or white-collar crimes, experts said. During the same period, the president denied 1,429 pardon applications and 5,683 more requests for commuted sentences.
“I don’t think this president has taken the pardon power very seriously, and I don’t see any indication that’s going to change,” said Margaret Colgate Love, the pardon attorney under President George H.W. Bush. “I’m just waiting for the next administration. I’m not looking for anything from this one.”
This Post article strongly suggests that former Gov. Ryan ought not be holding his breath for relief from a fellow chief executive.