With Only a Few Days Left in Office, President Obama Announces 209 More Commutations
Today, President Obama announced 209 grants of commutation. Of today's 209 grants, 100 were in cases supported by Clemency Project 2014. That brings the total number of commutations granted by President Obama thus far to 1,385, of which 705 were supported by Clemency Project 2014.
"President Obama has again used commutation to reunite families. We are grateful to President Obama, and we are hopeful for more commutations in his final days in office," said Cynthia W. Roseberry, project manager for Clemency Project 2014.
Clemency Project 2014, an unprecedented, wholly independent effort by the nation's bar, has recruited and trained nearly 4,000 volunteer lawyers from diverse practice backgrounds and completed screening of the more than 36,000 federal prisoners who requested volunteer assistance. The Project's painstaking review of these cases revealed that the overwhelming majority of those requests were by applicants who did not meet the criteria put forward by the Department of Justice in April 2014. To date, Clemency Project 2014 has submitted nearly 2,600 petitions to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. [MORE]