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For those of us who research and write about clemency, this is the moment we have been dreading. Inevitably, Trump is going to abuse this power as he leaves office, just as he abused it over the past 4 yrs by rewarding cronies and allies. /1 https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1327153961791614978
And the takeaways are likely to be that this power needs to be curtailed and future presidents need to be stopped from abusing it. /2
But the real story about clemency over the past decades has been the shamefully low rates of grants while mass incarceration has raged. Trump has given a handful of commutations when we have more than 150,000 in federal prison /3
Presidents before him have also failed to use this power to correct gross injustices. Even President Obama, who gave more clemency grants than most recent presidents, missed thousands of deserving people. /4
This is because the clemency process is broken. DOJ is in charge -- that's right, the same agency that prosecuted these people in the first place. Unsurprisingly, DOJ recommends no in just about every case. So presidents don't get recommendations for grants /5
It's not surprising they're not granting clemency when they're not being given any cases to grant from DOJ. This process needs to be taken out of DOJ as so many of the Democratic candidates for president recognized in their campaign platforms. /6
That should be the clemency story we focus on: this process needs to be taken away from the agency that has a vested interest in the cases because they brought them. It needs to move out of DOJ and into an advisory body that gives the president unbiased advice on grants. /7
That advisory board should have diverse membership, including someone who was formerly incarcerated. A prosecutor can have a seat at the table, too, but they should not be in charge of the process as they are now. /8
But the key is that this should be the focus we place on clemency. Not the handful of grotesque pardons & commutations Trump gives, but the thousands that aren't given to regular people who so desperately need them. /end @Oslerguy
