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"Obama's Mercy Dearth"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this potent commentary by Professor Mark Osler that ran over the weekend in the Dallas Morning News.  Here are excerpts: On Oct. 28, the White House announced that President Barack Obama had earlier in the month denied 71 pardon requests and 605 petitions for commutation of sentence, while granting none.  Nearly two years into his term, Obama has issued exactly zero pardons and no commutations, a sorry record that distinguishes him from nearly all of his predecessors. This failure to act undermines not only an important constitutional mechanism, but the values that underlay it.  The pardon power was not inserted into the Constitution by accident ?- that provision was promoted amongst the framers of the Constitution by Alexander Hamilton, who described it in the Federalist Papers as necessary to mitigate harshness in criminal law...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on November 08, 2010 (boomark / email).