Today President Biden granted clemency to nearly 1,500 individuals, a record high for a single day by any president. The group consisted of mostly people who were allowed under the Cares Act to return home during the Covid-19 pandemic to serve their sentences under home confinement.
Lauren-Brooke Eisen, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program, had the following comment:
“We are grateful and encouraged that President Biden granted clemency to nearly 1,500 Americans, a vital recognition of the excessively punitive nature of our criminal justice system. There are thousands more who deserve the same, and we hope to see additional clemencies granted before the end of his term. In addition to the group of people included in today’s announcement, the Brennan Center and a coalition of allies have been calling on the president to commute the sentences of the more than 40 people on federal death row to life without parole, and to thousands of people who are serving unfairly long, racially disparate drug sentences.”
