Executive Clemency Research Articles

An Unexpected Consequence of Pardon Powers: How the Possibility of Executive Clemency Makes it Easier for Judges to Issue Harsh Decisions

An Unexpected Consequence of Pardon Powers: How the Possibility of Executive Clemency Makes it Easier for Judges to Issue Harsh Decisions

Petition for Executive Clemency (Commutation) to President Joe Biden for Leonard Peltier (complete document)

Petition for Executive Clemency (Commutation) to President Joe Biden for Leonard Peltier (complete document)

Mercy and the Construction of Social Control: A Four-Site Analysis of Clemency

Executive clemency is a discretionary power to grant legal mercy and is rarely given. Using data from contemporary clemency hearings in four states, I explore how state actors use commutation hearings as sites to exert social control and communicate hegemonic ideology. Clemency board members use hearings as sites to communicate the behaviors and attitudes they desire from applicants, aiming to generate compliance and consent. These state actors use the ritual of the clemency process and the hope afforded by the possibility of legal mercy as tools to motivate desired behaviors and beliefs among those in prison both explicitly and implicitly in these hearings. Such behaviors and beliefs, accordingly, are those that serve to reinforce the control and power of the state.

Executive Clemency During the Coronavirus Pandemic: A Global Analysis of Law and Practice

Because of the threat that Covid-19 poses to incarcerated populations, executives around the world have used their clemency powers to commute sentences and grant freedom to prisoners in high-risk categories. Coronavirus pardons may be justified on several theories of punishment and have been exercised alongside bureaucratic forms of legal mercy such as parole and compassionate release. Although executive clemency is residual in most legal systems, the novel coronavirus has reactivated the pardon power in many jurisdictions, overcoming significant legal and procedural barriers, albeit with exclusions for particular crimes and categories of offender. This article relays recent global trends in executive clemency granted as a result of Covid-19, drawing out relevant lessons for the academic literature on the topic, as well as for policymakers dealing with future pandemics and other emergencies.

Civil Rights Restoration and Recidivism

When a person is convicted of a felony offense, they lose the right to vote, the candidacy to sit on a jury, the ability to hold public office, and the right to own firearms. In addition, civil rights revocation also denies the eligibility of certain occupational licenses and state-funded scholarships. It is unknown, a priori, if civil right status influences labor market outcomes, voting behavior, or educational attainment, any of which may affect incentives for convicted felons to re-offend. As an aggregate measure of these channels, I analyze the casual link between civil rights restoration and rates of recidivism. To establish this relationship, this paper uses variation in the Rules of Executive Clemency, which affect an ex-felons’ ability to restore their civil rights. I find that restoring an individual’s civil rights reduces their probability to recidivate by 18 percentage points, which translates to a reduction in the overall recidivism rates by 1 percentage point.

Statistical Analysis of Presidential Pardons

This report describes a study of pardon petition evaluations that were performed by the Office of the Pardon Attorney (OPA), a unit in the U.S. Department of Justice that processes thousands of requests for executive clemency each year. A statistical examination was conducted on how OPA screens incoming petitions for technical compliance, investigates the facts underlying each petitioner’s request for clemency, and applies substantive standards for evaluating the merits of such petitions when crafting recommendations to the U.S. President to grant or deny relief. Data were analyzed for any patterns in OPA decisions that indicated statistically significant evidence of racial or ethnic bias.

Deadly justice without mercy in East Asia?

ABSTRACT This article explores executive clemency in death penalty cases in China, Taiwan and Japan. All three neighbouring legal jurisdictions are notable for frequently passing death sentences and executing prisoners over the past several decades without the executive branch of government granting individualised pardon or commutation to any death row prisoner since at least 1975, if not earlier. This highly unusual feature of all three nations’ death penalty practice suggests a policy puzzle. The authors’ case study comparison of these three East Asian jurisdictions reveals two common explanatory features. First is the availability of alternative post-appellate procedures to mitigate punishment in cases undeserving of death, and to limit execution totals for policy reasons. Second is the inability of condemned prisoners to directly access the ultimate clemency decision-maker by petition, unlike in most death penalty retentionist jurisdictions. The authors conclude by making several policy recommendations on this basis.

National Responses for Persons Deprived of Liberty during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Philippines

ABSTRACT The main purpose of this paper is to review the national responses for persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the Philippines. The researcher discusses the major responses that have been carried out such as easing the rules on parole grant and executive clemency, providing human consideration to the vulnerable segments, and improving the corrections facilities health management. These responses are expected to decrease the growth of virus infection inside the corrections facilities, protect the condition especially of the vulnerable segments, and ensure the overall safety of the community. This paper specifically recommends for the need to expand the virtualization of judiciary functions to the provincial zones, place the release of the vulnerable segments in priority order, and technically improve the health management of corrections. However, as current responses may just represent temporary measures due to the crisis, this paper further urges for responses that will eventually lead to long-term decongestion of corrections facilities or reduction of the perennially high prison population of the country.

Prosecutor-Driven “Second-Look” Policies Are Encouraging, but Not a Panacea

Research Article| May 11 2020 Prosecutor-Driven “Second-Look” Policies Are Encouraging, but Not a Panacea Rory Fleming Rory Fleming Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Federal Sentencing Reporter (2020) 32 (4): 205–211. https://doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2020.32.4.205 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Rory Fleming; Prosecutor-Driven “Second-Look” Policies Are Encouraging, but Not a Panacea. Federal Sentencing Reporter 11 May 2020; 32 (4): 205–211. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2020.32.4.205 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFederal Sentencing Reporter Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2020 Vera Institute of Justice. All rights reserved.2020 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Decentralizing Clemency: Decentralizing the Commutation Power to Invigorate Sentence Reduction

Reforming sentencing and reducing prison overcrowding requires a focus on the future to ensure just punishments and the past to re-evaluate harsh punishments from the ‘tough on crime’ era. This paper focuses on ending those past wrongs. Executive clemency is sometimes discussed as a method for addressing harsh punishments, but there are only so many governors and Presidents. This paper proposes amending the Ohio Constitution to grant the elected county prosecutors a commutation power subject to veto by the governor. This would decentralize clemency and create a new, potentially system-reshaping tool to address harsh sentences and empower reform-minded prosecutors. The paper additionally discusses other methods to expand clemency and favors adopting the novel constitutional amendment in addition to other reforms for maximum impact.

Making sense of the victim’s role in clemency decision making

This article discusses victim engagement with the executive clemency process from a normative perspective. The authors’ aim is to explore the existing models of victim participation in clemency decision making in common law jurisdictions, in order to determine whether these possess any sound theoretical basis. The article brings together the academic literatures on victim participation and clemency functionality in order to ground the analysis. In brief, the authors' main finding is that victim involvement in clemency decision making can indeed be supported by the theoretical literature, albeit to a more limited extent than is currently practised in some common law jurisdictions. In light of the theoretical underpinnings of clemency in democratic societies and the literature on victim participation, the authors conclude by making several ‘best practice’ recommendations for future policy-making.

VICTIM–PERPETRATOR RECONCILIATION AGREEMENTS:WHAT CAN MUSLIM-MAJORITY JURISDICTIONS AND THE PRC LEARN FROM EACH OTHER?

AbstractAs States that use the death penalty liberally in a world that increasingly favours abolition, the Muslim-majority jurisdictions that are strict exponents of Islamic law and the People's Republic of China share a crucial commonality: their frequent use of victim–perpetrator reconciliation agreements to remove convicted murderers from the threat of execution. In both cases, rather than a prisoner's last chance at escaping execution being recourse to executive clemency, victim–perpetrator reconciliation agreements fulfil largely the same purpose, together with providing means of compensating victims for economic loss, and enabling the State concerned to reduce execution numbers without formally limiting the death penalty's scope in law. Utilizing the functionalist approach of comparative law methodology, this article compares the 13 death penalty retentionist nations that have incorporated Islamic law principles into their positive criminal law with the People's Republic of China, as to the functions underpinning victim–perpetrator reconciliation agreements in death penalty cases.

Acts of the ‘Most Sanguinary Rage’: Spousal Murder in Montreal, 1825–1850

This study examines the 11 cases of wife murder (uxoricide) and 3 cases of husband murder (mariticide) identified in the judicial district of Montreal between 1825-1850, a period of considerable social flux. Through examination of judicial archives and primary sources, supplemented by comprehensive review of period newspapers, these cases allow us to examine the dynamics and causes that motivated spousal murders and offer insight into the motivations, means, and mechanics of investigation and prosecution of these crimes as well as the role of mercy and executive clemency. In so doing, it contributes to our understanding of family violence and the administration of criminal justice for an under-examined period in Canadian history. These gendered crimes reflect “traditional” male attempts to exert and maintain power dynamics and privilege through the use of ongoing violence, rather than the influence of romantic ideals and sexual jealousy reflected in other jurisdictions of the period, and rarely involved premeditated murder. Wives, in contrast, had motives that were altogether murkier, but their actions suggested they acted opportunistically to achieve their desired ends. Whatever the reasons that motivated them, these cases were set against a deeply-gendered backdrop of juridical processes and media coverage that reinforced traditional notions of gender and social mores, and in which the identity of female offenders and victims receded almost to the point of invisibility.

Acts of the “Most Sanguinary Rage”: Spousal Murder in Montreal, 1825-1850

This study examines the 11 cases of wife murder (uxoricide) and 3 cases of husband murder (mariticide) identified in the judicial district of Montreal between 1825-1850, a period of considerable social flux. Through examination of judicial archives and primary sources, supplemented by comprehensive review of period newspapers, these cases allow us to examine the dynamics and causes that motivated spousal murders and offer insight into the motivations, means, and mechanics of investigation and prosecution of these crimes as well as the role of mercy and executive clemency. In so doing, it contributes to our understanding of family violence and the administration of criminal justice for an under-examined period in Canadian history. These gendered crimes reflect “traditional” male attempts to exert and maintain power dynamics and privilege through the use of ongoing violence, rather than the influence of romantic ideals and sexual jealousy reflected in other jurisdictions of the period, and rarely involved premeditated murder. Wives, in contrast, had motives that were altogether murkier, but their actions suggested they acted opportunistically to achieve their desired ends. Whatever the reasons that motivated them, these cases were set against a deeply-gendered backdrop of juridical processes and media coverage that reinforced traditional notions of gender and social mores, and in which the identity of female offenders and victims receded almost to the point of invisibility.

No Indeterminate Sentencing Without Parole

This article looks critically at Arizona’s indeterminate sentencing system that survived after the elimination of parole in Arizona in 1993. It begins by exploring the purpose and history of indeterminate sentencing and parole as well as its earliest constitutional challenges and eventual decline. Next it compares two commonly confused forms of “release”: parole and executive clemency. The article then examines the three types of defendants and the potential consequences if Arizona does not reestablish parole for its indeterminate sentences: death row defendants denied parole eligibility instructions at trial, defendants whose plea agreement includes parole and defendants sentenced to parole at trial. Finally, the article argues that without parole, Arizona’s indeterminate sentences should be ruled unconstitutional.

PRAWO ŁASKI NA POZIOMIE STANOWYM W USA

The Right of Clemency at the State Level in the United StatesSummary The article discusses the core issues related to state-level clemency in the United States of America. This power is deeply rooted in American history. At this level clemency often serves as an important mechanism of checks and balances on the state judiciary; it enables error-correction in a state criminal justice system, it may afford relief from undue harshness, and it helps to ensure that the state justice system is tempered. Although it is not required by the federal constitution, each state has a constitutional provision addressing clemency. This article points out that an important difference compared with solutions at the federal level is that the power to exercise clemency at the state level is vested in either the governor, an executive clemency board, or a combination thereof, so an important part of the study was to determine the advantages and disadvantages of each of these solutions. Another important aspect of the study was to identify the determinants affecting the regulation and application of state clemency. The article also discusses (I) some legal methods to limit the power to pardon and (II) regulations which determine the transparency of the whole procedure.

Victim-Perpetrator Reconciliation Agreements in Murder Cases: What Can Muslim-Majority Jurisdictions and the PRC Learn from Each Other?

As states that use the death penalty liberally in a world that increasingly favours abolition, the Muslim-majority jurisdictions that are strict exponents of Islamic Law and the People’s Republic of China share a crucial commonality: their frequent use of victim-perpetrator reconciliation agreements to remove convicted murderers from the threat of execution. In both cases, rather than a prisoner’s last chance at escaping execution being recourse to executive clemency, victim-perpetrator reconciliation agreements fulfil largely the same purpose, together with providing means of compensating victims for economic loss, and enabling the state concerned to reduce execution numbers without formally limiting the death penalty’s scope in law. Utilizing the functionalist approach of comparative law methodology, this article compares the thirteen death penalty retentionist nations that have incorporated Islamic Law principles into their positive criminal law with the People’s Republic of China, as to the functions underpinning victim-perpetrator reconciliation agreements in death penalty cases.

The Functions of Death Penalty Clemency in Southeast Asia: Comparative Lessons for Vietnam

Despite being the final procedural barrier separating life and death in capital cases, executive clemency has traditionally not received the attention it deserves from comparative law and comparative criminal justice scholars, including those writing about Southeast Asia. This article aims to build upon previous empirical scholarship on death penalty clemency in Southeast Asia in two ways: by focusing on the ‘who’ question in clemency awards in the region rather than on ‘how many’ prisoners benefit, and also by updating previous findings in light of any new clemency data available since 2013. After relaying the contemporary and possible future clemency practice of each ‘actively retentionist’ Southeast Asian nation, this article concludes by reflecting on what this regional use of clemency might mean for Vietnam’s future clemency policy in death penalty cases.

Executive Clemency in the United States

Executive Clemency in the United States

Comparative Executive Clemency: The Constitutional Pardon Power and the Prerogative of Mercy in Global Perspective by Andrew Novak Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. xiv + 203 pp. Hardcover: £90

Comparative Executive Clemency: The Constitutional Pardon Power and the Prerogative of Mercy in Global Perspective by Andrew Novak Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. xiv + 203 pp. Hardcover: £90