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"The Twilight of the Pardon Power"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this article from former US Pardon Attorney Margaret Colgate Love now available via SSRN.  Here is the abstract: Throughout our nation?s history, the president?s pardon power has been used with generosity and regularity, to correct systemic injustices and to advance the executive?s policy goals. Since 1980, however, presidential pardoning has fallen on hard times, its benign purposes frustrated by politicians? fear of making a mistake, and subverted by unfairness in the way pardons are granted.  The diminished role of clemency is unfortunate, since federal law makes almost no provision for shortening a prison term and none at all for mitigating the collateral consequences of conviction.  It would be bad enough in these circumstances if presidents had made a conscious choice not to pardon at all, or to make only token use of their constitutional power...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on March 15, 2010 (boomark / email).