Who Got Clemency Under Obama's 2014 Initiative? What the Data Shows

Most people who received a commutation under President Obama's 2014 Clemency Initiative did not appear to meet every factor the Justice Department announced, and thousands who did meet them got nothing. That is the main finding of a report the U.S. Sentencing Commission released in September 2017. The 59-page report is titled An Analysis of the Implementation of the 2014 Clemency Initiative.

Clemency is the President's power to shorten a federal sentence (a "commutation") or forgive a federal crime (a "pardon"). The 2014 initiative invited certain federal prisoners to apply for commutations.

Key findings

• President Obama made 1,928 grants of clemency. Of those, 1,716 were commutations, more than any other President had granted.
• 1,696 of the commutations came through the 2014 Clemency Initiative.
• Those commutations cut sentences by an average of 39.0 percent, or about 140 months.
• Only 86 of the 1,696 people (5.1%) appeared to meet all of the factors the Justice Department had announced for the initiative.
• On April 24, 2014, about 1,025 drug trafficking prisoners appeared to meet all the factors. Of them, 54 (5.3%) received clemency.
• By January 19, 2017, the Commission counted 2,687 drug trafficking prisoners who had been in custody when the initiative was announced and appeared to meet all the factors. Of them, 92 (3.4%) received clemency.

The report's conclusions

The initiative's stated goal was to lower sentences for nonviolent offenders who "likely would have received substantially lower sentences" under the law in effect in 2014. Over time, it was limited to drug trafficking offenders.

The Commission found that many people who seemed to meet the announced factors did not receive clemency, and many who did receive it did not appear to meet every factor. By the end of President Obama's term, almost 2,600 people who had been in prison when the initiative was announced, and who appeared to meet all the factors, had not received any clemency.

The Justice Department never publicly explained what each factor meant, so the Commission said it could not tell how much the factors drove the President's decisions. The factors may have been read more broadly, or the President may have weighed some factors more than others.

Here is the report's conclusion in full:

President Barack Obama granted clemency to 1,928 persons during his eight years in office. Most of these grants took the form of sentence commutations. Of the 1,716 sentence commutations he granted, 1,696 were made through the 2014 Clemency Initiative.

The stated intent of the Clemency Initiative was to lower sentences for non-violent offenders who "likely would have received substantially lower sentences if convicted of the same offense" under the law then in effect. At some point after it was announced, the scope of the Initiative was limited to drug trafficking offenders.

The offenders who received commutations through the Initiative saw their sentences reduced by an average of 39.0 percent, or approximately 140 months.

Although DOJ announced factors that it stated would be considered when recommending petitions for clemency to the President, only 86 of the 1,696 offenders who received a commuted sentence under the Clemency Initiative appear to have met all the announced factors. Many other offenders also appear to have met the announced factors yet were not offered clemency.

By the end of President Obama's term in office there were almost 2,600 offenders who had been incarcerated when the Clemency Initiative was announced and who appeared to meet all the announced factors for consideration under the Initiative but who did not receive any form of clemency.

Because DOJ did not provide any public information as to what each factor meant, it is impossible to assess the extent to which the factors, as announced, contributed to the President's ultimate decision as to whom to grant clemency. As has been discussed, it is possible that all the offenders receiving sentence commutations under the Initiative met these factors, albeit with the factors interpreted more broadly than as discussed in this report. It may also have been that President Obama chose to emphasize some of the factors over others. The analyses in this report are presented to provide information about who received sentence commutations under the Initiative, the effect of those commutations on the sentences for those offenders, and the extent to which it appears that the announced factors were followed. The analysis of other offenders who may have met the announced criteria but did not receive clemency as of the end of President Obama's term in office is presented in order to provide some data regarding the overall reach of the 2014 Clemency Initiative.

You can read the full report here.

What this means for a clemency petition today

The 2014 initiative ended with the Obama administration, but its lesson still holds: clemency is the President's decision, and meeting a published list of factors does not guarantee a grant. A strong petition tells the person's whole story, including conduct in prison, programs completed, and release plans, and it is filed with the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney.

Facing a federal sentence? Book a consultation to talk it through with Brandon Sample.