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Informed perspectives on the closing clemencies of the Bush Administration

By Douglas A. Berman

Former pardon attorney Margaret Colgate Love sent me this little commentary via e-mail to wrap up President Bush's decision to wrap up the exercise of his clemency power with two final commutations to Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean: I think it is significant that the Pardon Attorney apparently never weighed in on the Border Patrol agent cases (and evidently was never asked to weigh in), though the cases have been a clemency "item" for several years.  This, together with the botched Toussie grant and the more than 4000 denials in the past 12 months, confirms for me that the Justice Department pardon program has ceased to serve any useful function.  If these final grants provide the occasion for a top-to-bottom review of the clemency system, Bush will have done us all a favor...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 19, 2009 (boomark / email).