President Barack Obama shortened the sentences of 214 federal prisoners on Wednesday – the most commutations in a single day in over a hundred years.
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– Darnell Crookshank of West Covina, who was sentenced in 1996 to life in prison for drug conspiracy and manufacturing.
Under the commutation grant, Brown’s prison sentence will expire on December 1, 2016.
Commutation Grant: Prison sentence commuted to expire on December 1, 2016, and unpaid balance of the $4,000 fine remitted.
He said that although acts of clemency, such as pardons and commutations, could give some people second chances, the real challenge lay in overhauling the criminal justice system. “For others, the president has commuted their sentences to a significantly reduced term so they are consistent with present-day sentencing policies”.
Raymond Fox, of New York City, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2005 for cocaine-related charges.
Four Metro Detroit men serving time for drug convictions are among 214 people whose federal sentences have been commuted.
Derrick Glass of Youngstown, imprisoned for conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine and felon in possession of a firearm. The White House called on Congress to work on bipartisan criminal justice reform to help decrease America’s prison population on a much larger scale.
In 2014, the Obama administration directed the Department of Justice to place special focus on commutation petitions for individuals serving time for nonviolent drug offences who would be given lighter sentences if convicted today.
“The individual nature of the clemency process underscores both its incredible power to change a person’s life, but also its inherent shortcoming as a tool for broader sentencing reform”, wrote Neil Eggleston, Obama’s top lawyer, in a blog post on the White House website Wednesday.
Eggleston once again called on Congress to pass legislation overhauling the USA criminal justice system.
Those past nine presidents include George W. Bush (11 commuted sentences), Bill Clinton (61), George H.W. Bush (3), Ronald Reagan (13), Jimmy Carter (29), Gerald Ford (22), Richard Nixon (60), Lyndon Johnson (226) and John F. Kennedy (100).
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“We are not done yet”, Yates said.
