President Obama commuted the sentences of 102 federal prisoners Thursday, extending his lead over his predecessors for the most commutations.
Obama has now commuted the sentences of 774 prisoners compared with 61 and 60 for Presidents Clinton and Nixon, who respectively are second and third in the commutations category.
“The vast majority of today’s grants were for individuals serving unduly harsh sentences for drug-related crimes under outdated sentencing laws,” Obama administration counsel Neil Eggleston wrote on the White House blog Thursday.
Obama has commuted more sentences than the previous 11 presidents combined, Eggleston noted.
That statistic makes “clear that the president and his administration have succeeded in efforts to reinvigorate the clemency process,” he wrote. Such “relief highlights the need for bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation.”
Only Congress can rewrite the nation’s sentencing laws and revamp the criminal justice system, a top late-term priority of Obama’s, Eggleston said.
