Cohen Amendment Would Help Achieve Justice for Americans Serving Unfair Prison Sentences

[WASHINGTON, DC] – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) this evening offered an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2015 Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill to provide additional resources to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of the Pardon Attorney to help President Obama’s Administration more fully realize the goals of its newly-expanded criteria for executive clemency. The additional $2 million in funding would help ensure that the Office of the Pardon Attorney has a sufficient number of attorneys to adequately review the expected influx of clemency applications soon-to-be-submitted by non-violent offenders as a result of the new criteria.

“From my first day in Congress, advocating for fairer sentencing laws and realistically examining sentencing disparities has been a centerpiece of my legislative agenda,” said Congressman Cohen. “While the President expanding the criteria for clemency applications is encouraging, the good it will do is limited by the number of attorneys available to process those applications. Congress must act to ensure that we give deserving non-violent drug offenders a true second chance at freedom, improve our justice system, and save taxpayers money.”

While the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which Congressman Cohen cosponsored and the President signed into law, reduced the racially-biased 100:1 disparity between crack and powder cocaine mandatory minimum sentences, it did not apply retroactively to thousands of people who were sentenced before the law was passed who are still serving sentences that have been repudiated by Congress and the President. These non-violent inmates are now more likely to be eligible for executive clemency under the expanded criteria announced last month, but the Office of the Pardon Attorney likely does not have the resources to adequately process such a large number of applications in a timely manner.

The Congressman’s deficit-neutral amendment would transfer $2 million from the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) budget to the Office of the Pardon Attorney to support additional staff attorneys. With $30,000 of BOP funds spent each year per inmate at a federal prison, this is $2 million that would not be necessary if the Pardon Attorney found just 70 non-violent offenders deserving of a Presidential pardon or commutation.