Congressional progressives back new bill to radically change the 'broken' clemency system

• There is currently a backlog of more than 17,000 petitions for clemency.
• President Joe Biden has yet to grant any of the requests.

Progressives in Congress, unhappy with a clemency system they say is too slow and deferential to prosecutors, are proposing to create an independent panel they hope would depoliticize and expedite pardons.

The "FIX Clemency Act," introduced Friday by Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, calls for a nine-person board that would be responsible for reviewing petitions for clemency and issuing recommendations directly to the president. The recommendations would also be made public in an annual report to Congress. At least one member of the panel would be someone who was previously incarcerated.

"Clemency works, but the current system is broken and denies thousands of people the chance of redemption and justice," Pressley told Insider. "It is long overdue that the president uses his clemency authority to address the generations of systemic injustices that have created the mass incarceration crisis," she said, arguing that her bill was a "critical" part of that effort.

The proposal, endorsed by the ACLU and the NAACP, comes as advocates of clemency reform are increasingly frustrated with the administration. Since taking office, President Joe Biden has not used his clemency power — a fact that is not unusual at this point in a new presidency, but a disappointment to those who see it as an area where the White House can immediately and unilaterally reform the criminal justice system.

Earlier this week, a White House official told Insider Biden is considering clemency for thousands of federal inmates who were released to home confinement at the start of the pandemic. But the administration has not committed to fundamentally reforming the clemency system, with the official saying the president would consider petitions via the "ordinary course."

But that, advocates say, is a bureaucratic maze housed within the Department of Justice, the Office of the Pardon Attorney serving as the first of seven layers of review. There is currently a backlog of more than 17,000 petitions for clemency.

The bill introduced Friday would eliminate the Office of the Pardon Attorney, transferring its functions to the new board, and guarantee that all requests for pardon or commutation be reviewed within 18 months. Members of the new panel would include a representative from the Department of Justice, but also someone who has worked for a federal public defenders office.

During the 2020 campaign, a "unity" task force composed of Biden supporters and backers of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders recommended the creation of an independent clemency review board. The proposal is also in the Democratic Party's platform.

So far, however, the administration has given no indication that it endorses the reform. And its liberal critics say the federal criminal justice system is headed in the wrong direction.

"2021 marks the first increase in 8 years of our federal prison population — that's nearly a decade of progress that has been wiped out," Rep. Cori Bush, a Democrat from Missouri and cosponsor of the new legislation, said in a statement.

According to the Bureau of Prisons, there were 156,862 federal inmates as of the start of December — an increase of 1,300 compared to 2020. The federal prison population peaked in 2013 at more than 219,000.

"Fueled by the failed war on drugs, the mass incarceration epidemic that our nation faces has ruined lives, families and communities," Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat who leads the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement. "Our broken clemency system only deepens this pain, and we must transform it in a just, equitable and transparent manner."

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