Obama shortens terms for 61 drug offenders

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentences of 61 drug offenders Wednesday, including more than a third serving life sentences, working to give new energy to calls for overhauling the U.S. criminal justice system.

All of the inmates are serving time for drug possession, intent to sell or related crimes. Most are nonviolent offenders, although a few also were charged with firearms violations. Obama’s commutation shortens their sentences, with most of the inmates set to be released July 28.

Obama, in a letter to the inmates receiving commutations, said the presidential power to grant commutations and pardons “embodies the basic belief in our democracy that people deserve a second chance.”

The offenders given shortened sentences include three from Ohio, all from Cincinnati. The shortened prison sentences for two of the three from Cincinnati, Tommy Howard and Isadore Gennings, expire July 28. Howard had been sentenced in 2004 to more than 24 years in prison for use of a firearm during a drug-trafficking offense. Gennings was sentenced in 2002 to 20 years in prison for offenses including a conspiracy to distribute cocaine.

The third inmate from Ohio, Alvin Cordell, was sentenced in 1997 to life in prison plus a $50,000 fine. The commutation makes that sentence expire March 30, 2017, and would remit the unpaid balance of the fine.

The latest commutations bring to 248 the total number of inmates whose sentences Obama has commuted – more than the past six presidents combined, the White House said. The pace of commutations and the rarer use of pardons are expected to increase as the end of Obama’s presidency nears.

“Throughout the remainder of his time in office, the president is committed to continuing to issue more grants of clemency as well as to strengthening rehabilitation programs,” said Neil Eggleston, the White House counsel, in a blog post.

He added that clemency is a tool of last resort that can help specific people, but doesn’t address the broader need for a “more fair and just” system and “fix decades of overly punitive sentencing policies.”