Joe Biden, present US president has commuted the sentences of nearly 1500 people and granted presidential pardons to 39 people on Thursday. All the presidential pardons are to those Americans who are convicted of non-violent crimes. This decision taken by Biden is considered to be the biggest grant of Clemency in American government history.
This act of Biden comes two weeks after the President issued a pardon for his son Hunter Biden, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes. According to sources, Biden was under a lot of pressure to take this action of pardon, before he handed over power to President-elect Donald Trump.
Biden stated that “America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances” and according to him, the outdated laws have forced him to take this step in the favour of the Americans. Back in 2017, the second-largest act of clemency in a single day was done by Barack Obama, that was 330, shortly before leaving office.
The term clemency refers to the ability of the president to give mercy or to ease the sentence of an individual. Now, to commute a sentence means that the punishment is either shortened or replaced but does not exonerate the wrongdoing. It has become a tradition for the president to grant clemency at the end of terms so that he could use the office to clear records or end prison terms.
