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You had one job America. . .
Tag: prisons
Usually, when contemplating the Office of the President of the United States, our cause for complaint is excess of power. Our country was founded on opposition to such centralized power — initially directed against King George III — and the Constitution written, in part, to allow a strong federal government without feeding the beast of Tyranny.
Yet, today, I’m not bemoaning unchecked presidential power. Instead, the opposite: an important presidential power that Mr. Obama lets lie unused.
What is that power?
The executive’s power to pardon, defined in Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.
Yesterday, George Lardner Jr., a scholar with the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, and Political Science Professor P. S. Ruckman Jr., the editor of the Pardon Power Blog, reported in an op-ed for The Washington Post, that “Obama has a clemency record comparable to the least merciful presidents in history. He has granted just 70 pardons, the lowest mark for any full-term president since John Adams, and 187 commutations of sentence.”
“Obama’s record is all the more deplorable because of assurances that he has made,” argue Lardner and Ruckman, noting that the Department of Justice’s Clemency Project 2014 — designed to provide relief to non-violent drug offenders and announced “to great fanfare” — has “become a bureaucratic disaster.”
With all the injustice found even in the best justice systems, I cannot understand how a compassionate person could ignore this power. Or use it, as President Bill Clinton did, to provide last-minute pardons for cronies and high-rolling campaign contributors.
Have mercy.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Beardless in Arkansas
The United States Supreme Court has accepted a legal petition presented in an unusual manner: in handwritten form, without the benefit of any lawyer.
The case comes from a convict in the Arkansas State prison system, one Gregory Holt, “aka Abdul Malik Muhammad,” who wants to wear a beard while incarcerated, in accordance with his religion. The prison rules prohibit beards on hygiene and security grounds. Muhammad’s case is interesting. Questions include (and I quote)
- Whether the Arkansas Department of Corrections’ no beard grooming policy violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act…
- Whether a 1/2 inch beard would satisfy the security goals sought by the policy.
- Whether the no beard grooming policy violates Petitioner’s First Amendment right to practice Islam as he believes it…
How will the Supreme Court rule? On the face of it (no beard pun intended), prisoners’ appeals for court intervention in how they are incarcerated, on the basis of their rights, may seem odd to some. After all, the whole point of imprisonment is to deny the most basic right to liberty, because, presumably, a criminal has denied someone else’s rights.
But in our society, even those guilty of serious crimes and having lost much of their freedom retain certain rights. This stems mostly from our fear of what becomes of us — not the criminals — should we stop respecting every person’s humanity.
It’s also heartening to see a petition rise to the highest court in the land from the very lowest perch without aid of a lawyer … or even a computer or typewriter.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.