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Effective USA Today coverage of President Obama's clemency stinginess

By Douglas A. Berman

Yesterday's edition of USA Today had a pair of pieces (and this reprinted graphis) discussing federal clemency realities, which effectively stressed the significant fact that President Obama has received a huge number of clemency requests while having granted not a single one during his first 16+ months in the Oval Office.  One piece, which is headlined "Record number seek president's clemency," starts this way: President Obama has received more petitions for pardons and shorter prison sentences than previous presidents at this point in office, and he hasn't approved a single one.  Obama has already logged 2,361 clemency petitions, according to the Justice Department.  He also faces a backlog of 2,173 old requests, a legacy of a system that civil rights groups and conservative jurists say has fallen into disuse...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 28, 2010 (boomark / email).