Local advocacy groups are calling on Joe Biden to issue mass pardons before leaving office
100 organizations, including many across Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, have called on Joe Biden to issue more clemency grants in the remaining days of his presidency.
Progressive advocacy groups and organizations across Philadelphia and Pennsylvania signed on to an open letter calling on President Joe Biden to issue mass pardons before leaving office.
The letter, released Friday and signed by 100 organizations nationwide, urges Biden to grant clemency to 10,000 pending petitions that the document cites as connected to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. Biden supported both pieces of legislation and was a primary sponsor of the 1994 crime bill during his time in the U.S. Senate.
Biden’s support for these bills and others “have severely harmed Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poorly-resourced communities around the country for a generation, you have a moral and social obligation to repair these harms inflicted on our communities,” the signatories said in the letter, signed by state and local organizations, including Pennsylvania’s Working Families Party, Abolitionist Law Center, 215 People’s Alliance, Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, and Pittsburgh’s 1Hood Power.
The letter comes on the heels of criticism of Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden from federal charges on Dec. 1, after previously promising he would not. Most of the critiques from criminal justice advocates, including those in Philly, stems from the small number of clemency grants that Biden has approved in comparison to previous presidents, but they were hopeful that he would grant more petitions in the final weeks of his administration.
During Biden’s term, the Office of the Pardon Attorney, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, has received nearly 12,000 requests for clemency, many from individuals in the U.S. prison system, the New York Times reported last week.
Biden has so far issued 25 pardons and 132 commutations and issued other blanket pardons as of last week. This is fewer than the 144 pardons and 94 commutations that President-elect Donald Trump issued during his first administration, including pardons for political allies. Former President Barack Obama granted clemency to 1,597 individuals during his two terms in office, according to White House archives.
White House press secretary Karine-Jean Pierre said on Dec. 2 that Biden would announce more pardons at the end of his term, a typical practice among presidents leaving office.
The signatories ask Biden to prioritize the release of Michelle West and Leonard Peltier. West is serving two life sentences plus 50 years in federal prison for her role in a drug conspiracy case in Michigan. Peltier, an Indigenous activist, was convicted for killing two FBI agents in South Dakota in 1975. Supporters of both West and Peltier say they were wrongly convicted or accused.
“Before you leave the White House, you must act on your words that “America is a nation founded on the promise of second chances” by prioritizing an ambitious clemency initiative that pardons or commutes the sentences of the approximately 10,000 pending clemency petitions,” according to the letter.
While the groups criticized Biden’s record in supporting the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and the 1994 crime bill, which advocates say has contributed to mass incarceration, they want to give Biden the opportunity to act on his “desire to implement strategies that research shows will have the best chance of making communities safer,” according to the letter.
Other requests from signatories include Biden establishing an “independent Clemency Review Board” outside of the Justice Department via executive order to prevent future backlogs and limit bureaucracy surrounding clemency grants. They also call on him to commute the sentences of all 40 people on death row.
Two Philadelphia criminal justice advocates told The Inquirer last week that they hope Biden will make use of his remaining time in the presidency to issue more clemency grants.
One advocate, Robert Saleem Holbrook, executive director of the Abolitionist Law Center, which signed the petition, said that, as a father, he could empathize with Biden’s decision to pardon his son, but that “It’s really tragic that he couldn’t find that same empathy for thousands of other people, thousands of others, fathers and parents who have been applying for clemency under his administration.”