Hey folks, Ellie Honig here. On this week's show, we've got a great topic for you. We're talking

about the presidential pardon power. Of course, this subject is receiving an awful lot of attention

after President Joe Biden's controversial pardon of his son, Hunter. And with Biden's presidency

coming to an end, there are all sorts of questions about

whether and how he'll use the pardon power and the clemency power in other cases. For example,

will he commute the sentences of the 40 or so people who currently are on federal death row?

At the same time, there's an ongoing debate about whether the death penalty should be outlawed altogether. With me, today is the perfect guest for this conversation, Rachel Barco.

You all know, Rachel, she's a cafe contributor, and she's a professor at NYU Law School. She

previously served on the United States Sentencing Commission, and she's an expert on criminal

justice and the president's

pardon power. If you're already a member of Cafe Insider, head on over to the insider feed

to listen to our full conversation. Listeners of the council remain here for an excerpt

from my discussion with Rachel. To become a member of Cafe Insider and get access to two new podcast episodes each week,

head over to cafe.com slash insider pod. That's cafe.com slash insider pod. You can try

the membership for just one dollar for one month. That's cafe.com slash insider pod. Now,

on to the show.

So obviously you are a proponent of a broad use of the pardon power. Maybe not, I don't want to

state it too broadly, but right now you seem to believe there are hundreds and more maybe people

who deserve pardons. What broad categories of people would you like to see pardoned in the

remaining weeks of the Biden administration? So first would be the people that have that

positive recommendation from having gone through the process. I think all those should be granted.

There is no reason for those to be second-guessed.

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