Tongues wagging about Prez Trump using his clemency pen to grant compassionate release to Roger Stone
Unsurprisingly, lots and lots of folks have lots and lots to say about Prez Trump’s decision late Friday to commute the prison sentence of Roger Stone (basics covered here). I will start this post with two quick points and then round up below some of the other copious commentary already making the rounds.
1. Now do more, Mr. Prez: I am pleased Prez Trump has finally delivered, at least for an old friend with dirt on him, on his promise back in March to look at freeing elderly “totally nonviolent” offenders from federal prisons amid the COVID pandemic. I am being cheeky here, of course, but meaning to make a serious point: the Stone commutation bothers me far less than Prez Trump’s failure to use his clemency powers far more — both before and especially since the coronavirus crisis — to release the many federal prisoners who, like Stone, are older, medically vulnerable and present no clear risk to public safety.
Back in February 2020, Prez Trump coupled some high-profile clemency grants with commutations to three women of color with no political connections (details here). I sure wish Prez Trump and key advisers — Kushner? Kushner? Kushner? — had tried to couple the Stone commutation with clemency relief for just a few other older federal prisoners whose incarceration may prove deadly and serves little public safety purpose. But it is not too late to make up for lost time: now do more comparable commutations, Mr. Prez!
2. Now do even more, federal judges: As the title of this post is meant to suggest, the Stone clemency strikes me as another form of compassionate release. The official statement announcing the commutation made much of an “improper investigation,” of “overzealous prosecutors” and of “serious questions about the jury” while also stressing that “Mr. Stone would be put at serious medical risk in prison” and that “Roger Stone has already suffered greatly.” These comments suggest Prez Trump concluded, in the words of 18 USC § 3582(c)(1)(A), that there were “extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant[ing] a reduction” in Stone’s prison sentence and that such a reduction was consistent with 3553(a)’s purposes of punishment.
Thanks to the FIRST STEP Act, judges now have authority to grant comparable sentence reductions, and district judges have granted hundreds of compassionate release motions in response to the COVID crisis. But thousands of compassionate release requests have been denied, many coming from prisoners who are likely even more vulnerable and even more sympathetic than Stone. In more than a few cases, I have seen judges indicate considerable sympathy for the plight of a vulnerable older inmate, only to refuse release because the movant had not yet served enough time in prison. But Roger Stone did not serve any prison time, and yet Prez Trump was still moved by his “medical risk” and by the fact he had “already suffered greatly” even before serving a single day in federal prison. So this commutation should also be a message to federal judges: do more comparable compassionate releases, even if vulnerable offenders have served little or even no prison time.
I could go on, but rather than continue my tongue wagging about the Stone commutation, I will conclude here with a round-up of just a few other notable takes:
From Robert Mueller, “Roger Stone remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.”
From Politico, “‘Historic corruption’: 2 Republican senators denounce Trump’s commutation of Stone“
From Brett Tollman and Arthur Rizer, “Romney wrong to attack Trump commutation of Roger Stone prison sentence“
From Jack Goldsmith and Matt Gluck, “Trump’s Aberrant Pardons and Commutations“
From Jonathan Turley, “Why this Roger Stone commutation is not as controversial as some think“
From Jeffrey Tobin, “The Roger Stone Case Shows Why Trump Is Worse Than Nixon“