After President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden this week for tax and gun law violations, hundreds of prisoners who have requested clemency hope they are next, as advocates ramp up pressure on the president to increase the issuance of pardons and commutations during his last weeks in office.
Critics have complained that Biden has approved a smaller fraction of the requests for clemency that he has received than any other modern president — though he still has time.
The Office of the Pardon Attorney, part of the Justice Department, has received nearly 12,000 requests for clemency during Biden’s term, the New York Times reports. The president has so far issued 157 clemency grants — 25 pardons and 132 commutations — according to a tally kept by the pardon attorney. (It is not clear if the tally includes the pardon for Hunter Biden.)
That is fewer than the 238 — 144 pardons and 94 commutations — that Trump issued during his first administration.
Andrea James, who runs an organization that helps incarcerated women, said she did not begrudge Hunter Biden his pardon, but said she was hopeful that it would “move President Biden to consider other families who’ve endured what they have gone through for much longer periods of time.”
“This pardon of Hunter Biden better be the first of a huge flurry of commutations,” wrote Rachel Barkow, a law professor at New York University, in a social media post. “There are so many cases even more deserving than this one that the Pardon Attorney has recommended granting, and they’re just waiting for Biden’s signature.”
Among those waiting: Michael Montalvo, 78, a former cocaine ringleader who has spent nearly 40 years behind bars racking up course certifications, credits for good behavior and recommendations from his prison wardens. Michelle West, who has spent more than 30 years in prison for her role in a drug conspiracy connected to a murder, while the gunman, who testified against her, has gone free. And Sara Gallegos, who is serving a 20-year sentence for being briefly involved in a drug ring after her husband was murdered when she was pregnant with her fourth child.
Presidents have made a habit of waiting until the 11th hour to announce their clemency decisions.
Some hope that Biden will use his power to take a stand against the death penalty, which he promised during his 2020 campaign to end through an act of Congress. Opponents of capital punishment have suggested that he commute the sentences of all 40 people on federal death row instead.
Others argue that Biden should grant blanket clemency to the thousands of people who were placed on house arrest during the Covid-19 pandemic to lower their chances of illness. They could still be returned to prison at the discretion of the Bureau of Prisons.
A report by the agency found that those people had a lower rate of recidivism than similar prisoners.
Asked on Monday whether other clemency requests would receive the same attention as Hunter Biden’s case, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said Biden would announce more pardons at the end of his term.
“He’s thinking through that process very thoroughly. There’s a process in place, obviously,” she said.