Biden Urged To Grant Clemency To Those With Unjust Sentences
December 3, 2024
President Biden is being urged to grant clemency to other Americans facing unjust sentences.
After President Joe Biden granted clemency to his son, Hunter Biden, on Dec. 1, many are calling on the Commander-in-Chief to extend the same consideration to others facing more severe circumstances.
President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter, garnered national attention, particularly given his prior statements that he would not use his executive authority to pardon or commute his son’s sentence. Amid the controversy surrounding President Biden’s pardon of his son, Rep. Summer Lee tweeted on Monday to confirm her support for a letter members of Congress signed urging Biden to use his executive power to grant amnesty to thousands of Americans serving unjust sentences.
“It’s true Hunter Biden faced harsh sentencing & unfair treatment—but so do thousands of others, disproportionately Black folks,” she wrote. “I joined @RepPressley in urging @POTUS to grant clemency for the elderly, the chronically ill, those on death row, & others facing injustice.”
Just two weeks before Biden pardoned his son, over 60 members of Congress signed a letter, shared by The Appeal, urging the president to grant clemency to thousands of incarcerated individuals serving unjust sentences or awaiting execution on federal death row.
As President Biden prepares to leave office in a few weeks, handing the administration back to Donald Trump after his 2020 departure, members of Congress are emphasizing the urgency for him to use his clemency powers. The letter urges Biden to act on behalf of “broad classes of people and cases, including the elderly and chronically ill, those on death row, individuals with unjustified sentencing disparities, and women punished for defending themselves against their abusers.”
The letter, led by Reps. Ayanna Pressley, James Clyburn, and Mary Gay Scanlon and signed by Congress members, including Cori Bush, Pramila Jayapal, Barbara Lee, Jerrold Nadler, Jan Schakowsky, and Rashida Tlaib, advocates for the 90% of individuals in federal prison convicted of non-violent offenses.
“Our country is spending exorbitant amounts of money to keep people in prison for prolonged periods of time, including those who do not pose a significant public safety threat,” the Congress members wrote. “The reliance on incarceration in our legal system has created a crisis that must be addressed.”
During his four-year term, President Biden has granted 25 pardons and 132 commutations out of thousands of applications received by his administration. Additionally, he issued pardons for two groups of non-incarcerated individuals: those convicted of simple marijuana possession and military members court-martialed due to their sexual orientation.
But the pardons don’t even begin to scratch the surface of the millions of Americans behind bars with burdensome sentences, Congress members stress.
“We respectfully urge you to use your power of executive clemency to deliver justice to thousands of Americans serving unduly onerous sentences, the vast majority of who are African American,” several Senators wrote earlier in the month to President Biden.
The letter urges President Biden to use his clemency powers to reunite families impacted by the nation’s “extreme use of incarceration.” It highlights that one in two adults has an incarcerated family member and notes that the U.S. holds the highest incarceration rate in the world.
“You have the support of millions of people across the country who have felt the harms of mass incarceration: young children longing to hug their grandparents, people who have taken responsibility for their mistakes, and those who simply were never given a fair chance,” the representatives wrote. “These are the people seeking help that only you can provide through the use of your presidential clemency power.”
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