Pardon Season-Who gets one?

[Andrewwhyte 1]

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And are we done with pardons, or can he put more in the mail before midnight (or noon today?) and still be valid when received?

Presumably if he signed them as president then they are valid, but I am not sure he uses the post office.

[happythoughts 0]

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And are we done with pardons, or can he put more in the mail before midnight (or noon today?) and still be valid when received?

Presumably if he signed them as president then they are valid, but I am not sure he uses the post office.

Actually, Jan 20th is the big day for pardons.
On Jan 20, 2001, Clinton pardoned 140 people in the final hours of his presidency.

We'll have to wait for tomorrows news to get the
final count.

And, for those who do not know the difference.
A pardon means an executive order vacating a conviction.

A commutation means a mitigation of the sentence of someone currently serving a sentence,
without vacating the conviction itself.

So, a commutation does not remove the guilty verdict, it just says "time served is enough".

[Amazon 7]

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I applaud Bush's clemency reflecting the reality that the US is overly harsh / zealous / draconian in its prosecution and punishment of drug & alcohol offenses. That being the case, however, if that's something he did recognize, I'm disappointed that he didn't have the political guts to offer that up as proposed legislation, and ask for bipartisan support. If anything, a Republican President should have an easier time than a Democrat with an approach like that on this issue. Is it really that hard to be GOP and publicly have a humane attitude about this?

Its certainly time that we look at the illegal drugs as a revenue source. It would be a net gain rather than the huge amount of waste trying to fight peoples baser needs and instincts. The quality for those who use would go up... the cost would come down and tax revenues would be enhanced. Some of the taxes could go for the treatment programs that are inevitable.

It would also gut the criminals just as it did to the bootleggers when Prohibition ended.


Lord knows George put enough thru his nose that he could see that the war on drugs has been a disaster for our country.

[Andy9o8 2]

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I applaud Bush's clemency reflecting the reality that the US is overly harsh / zealous / draconian in its prosecution and punishment of drug & alcohol offenses.

Was this special to Bush, or do 20 year old drug convictions show up with Clinton and Bush in their final days too?

And are we done with pardons, or can he put more in the mail before midnight (or noon today?) and still be valid when received?

Bush's authority to grant pardons expired at 12:00 noon EST today. At that instant - which was about 5 minutes before Obama took the oath, Bush ceased to be President and Obama immediately became President.