Episode 18: Whatever happened to Clemency?

Justice In America

The Appeal

News, Politics, Prison, Law, Criminal, Justice, Jail, History, Education, Incarceration, America

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2019

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The pardon power is one of the strongest presidential powers in our constitution. The president alone has the ability to pardon or commute the sentence of any person convicted of a federal offense. (For those convicted of a state offense, usually it’s the governor who has that power.) But despite the fact that we imprison more people than ever, over the last few decades, presidents have been increasingly less likely to pardon people or commute sentences. On this episode, Clint and Josie discuss pardons and commutations, including some of the bizarre and fascinating decisions of presidents past. They also talk to clemency expert and NYU Law Professor Rachel Barkow about where Obama failed on this issue and the potential for a restructured process.

For links to resources visit theappeal.org

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We give really long sentences in the United States to people and the idea that you could
0:10.4	sentence somebody who is you know 21, 22 years old for 50 years and never
0:15.8	look again to see whether that makes sense either because that person has changed
0:20.6	dramatically or because we as a society have changed.
0:23.5	We've changed our views on whatever the underlying criminal conduct was.
0:27.2	Or we've just changed our views on the social circumstances surrounding that person's
0:32.0	commission of the crime.
0:33.6	To me, that I'm Clint Smith.
0:47.0	And this is Justice in America.
0:49.2	Each show we discuss a topic in the American Criminal Justice System and we try to explain what it is and how it works.
0:55.0	Thank you everyone for joining us today.
0:56.7	You can find us on Twitter at Justice underscore Podcast.
1:00.0	Like us on our Facebook page, that justice in America,
1:03.0	and subscribe and read us on iTunes,
1:04.6	or wherever you listen, we'd really love to hear from you.
1:07.4	We open the show with a clip from our guest
1:09.2	NYU law professor Rachel Barco,
1:11.4	whose book, Prisoners of Politics,
1:13.4	Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration,
1:15.6	was released early this March.
1:17.6	She's going to talk to us about our topic today,
1:19.9	which has been in the news lately
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Appeal, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Appeal and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.