Congressman Cohen Commends President Obama for Granting Clemency to 231 Americans Serving Unjustly Long Sentences

[MEMPHIS, TN] – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), who has been the most constant voice in Congress imploring President Obama to use his constitutional power to bring about justice through commutations and pardons, today commended President Obama’s decision to commute the prison sentences of 153 largely non-violent drug offenders and issuing 78 pardons. Today’s commutations and pardons represent the President’s continued commitment to using his pardon and commutation powers to right the wrongs of outdated and discriminatory federal policies, and to provide a second chance to deserving individuals. Today’s 231 commutations and pardons marks the most individual acts of clemency granted in a single day by any president in our nation’s history. President Obama has granted clemency to 1,176 prisoners and pardoned 148 people during his presidency.

"I commend President Obama for granting a daily record number of commutations and pardons for those serving unjustly long sentences for largely non-violent drug convictions,” said Congressman Cohen. “But the President should continue working at Mach speed to issue as many appropriate commutations and pardons as possible before leaving office, especially for those in jail for non-violent marijuana convictions and for crack-cocaine disparity injustices. Very, very few of the commutations and pardons issued were for marijuana-related convictions. Yet of all the drugs that prisoners have been jailed for, marijuana is the drug that causes the least harm to society, has contributed to the least number of deaths, and has been legalized medically in 28 states as well as the District of Columbia and recreationally for more than 63 million Americans. Why there haven’t been more commutations and pardons for marijuana convictions befuddles me. Our nation’s outdated federal drug laws disproportionately affect minority populations and continue a policy grounded in false premises and political expediency dating back to President Nixon’s ‘Southern Strategy.’ As Martin Luther King, Jr. rightly noted, ‘Justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”

Congressman Cohen has repeatedly called on the President to make broader use of his pardon and commutation powers to address injustices, including a November 15, 2016 letter to President Obama, a February 2016 column in the Commercial Appeal calling for increased staffing at the White House Counsel’s Office to review clemency petitions, a May 2015 column in the Blue Nation Review on the need to bring fairness back to the criminal justice system, a November 2014 column that appeared in The Hill, repeatedly urging then-Attorney General Holder to address the issue, in a letter sent to the President in June 2013, in an August 2013 speech on Capitol Hill and in an August 2013 column that appeared in The Nation.

The Fair Sentencing Act, which was passed by Congress with Congressman Cohen’s co-sponsorship and signed into law by the President in 2010, marked a turning point in our nation’s approach to drug policy and was a crucial step toward eliminating the dramatic and unfair disparity between crack and powder cocaine mandatory minimum sentences. But, as the President has noted, it “came too late” for thousands of people who were sentenced before the law was passed and who are still serving sentences imposed under outdated laws. The bipartisan Sentencing Reform Act of 2015, which passed the House Judiciary Committee in November, would, in part, make the Fair Sentencing Act retroactive. Congressman Cohen is a cosponsor of this bill.