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Thread: Presidential Commutations/Pardons

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Presidential Commutations/Pardons

    Obama commutes Chelsea Manning's sentence

    As one of his final acts as outgoing president, Barack Obama commuted the sentence being served by Chelsea Manning, a transgender soldier who is more than six years into a 35-year sentence for leaking classified government and military documents to the WikiLeaks website.

    Manning’s attorneys released her commutation application in November, asking Mr. Obama to shorten her sentence to the time she’s already served.

    The president granted commutation of sentence to 209 individuals and pardons to 64 individuals on Tuesday. Manning is expected to be freed in May 2017.

    Manning, whose name was Bradley at the time of her arrest in 2010, worked as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. She was convicted in 2013 in military court of six violations of the Espionage Act and 14 other offenses for providing to WikiLeaks more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents, as well as battlefield videos.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chelsea-...entence-freed/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Obama pardons retired Gen. James Cartwright, who leaked classified information on Iran nuclear facilities

    President Obama on Tuesday pardoned a retired Marine general who admitted to lying to federal investigators about having disclosed classified information about Iranian nuclear facilities to two reporters.

    Retired Gen. James Cartwright, a former vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was one of more than 60 pardons Obama handed down just days before leaving office.

    Cartwright pleaded guilty in October to lying to federal investigators during their investigation into whether he had disclosed classified information about the Stuxnet virus that caused Iranian nuclear centrifuges to spin out of control.

    "It was wrong for me to mislead the FBI on November 2, 2012, and I accept full responsibility for this," Cartwright said in a statement after his guilty plea. "I knew I was not the source of the story and I didn't want to be blamed for the leak. My only goal in talking to the reporters was to protect American interests and lives; I love my country and continue to this day to do everything I can to defend it."

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ob...rticle/2612101
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Obama grants clemency to convicted conspirator Oscar Lopez Rivera

    President Barack Obama has just granted clemency to Oscar Lopez Rivera who has been in federal prison since 1981.

    Rivera grew up in Chicago and was convicted of seditious conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government when he was a member of the Puerto Rican independence group FALN.

    Depending on who's doing the talking, Lopez-Rivera was either a dangerous terrorist who used booby trap bombs and other weapons or he was a freedom fighter who became a political prisoner since being convicted of seditious conspiracy and on weapons charges.

    Under Lopez-Rivera, the FALN, headquartered in Chicago and New York City, planted more than 130 bombs in U.S. cities beginning in 1974.

    The group's goal was Puerto Rican independence and destabilizing what they called, "Yankee capitalist monopoly. Lopez-Rivera convicted and sentenced to 55-years, proclaimed himself an enemy of the U.S. government.

    His Chicago apartment was the bombing-making headquarters for the FALN. The FBI found six pounds of dynamite and blasting caps in Lopez-Rivera's apartment. His sentence compounded in 1988 by a prison escape plot that included plans to murder guards.

    Over the years, Lopez-Rivera became described as a political prisoner wrongly convicted and incarcerated. Protesters, including high profile politicians and entertainers, backed an effort to have him released and petitions for clemency were circulated and presented to President Obama at the White House.

    On Tuesday, with the prominent backing of Chicago Congressman Luis Gutierrez, the president granted commutation of his sentence effective May 17.

    http://abc7chicago.com/news/obama-gr...ivera/1706988/
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Obama seems to have a fondness for meth dealers. Most of the commuted seem to have that offense.
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Soldier on 'military death row' for killing two cab drivers more than 25 years ago will be spared after his sentence was reduced in Obama's latest commutations

    Barack Obama has commuted the sentence handed down to a former soldier being held on the military's death row.

    Dwight Loving's sentence was one of the 209 commutations handed down by the President on Tuesday, in one of his final acts before leaving the White House.

    Loving, a former private first-class, had his punishment reduced from death to life in prison without parole.

    The 47-year-old was convicted over the killings of two cab drivers in Texas in December 1988.

    'Death sentence commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, on the condition that Loving shall never have any rights, privileges, claims, or benefits arising under the parole and suspension or remission of sentence laws of the United States and the regulations promulgated thereunder governing federal prisoners confined in any penal institution,' a White House statement read.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ent-Obama.html
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Obama Hands Down Several High Profile Clemencies, Pardons

    ARBOLEDA A. ORTIZ

    In a Missouri court in 2000 he was sentenced to die for his role in a murder and in drug trafficking. He maintained that officers who questioned him never told him he had a right to an attorney or a right to remain silent. His attorneys said he never learned to read or write in any language.

    Obama commuted the death penalty punishment to life imprisonment. Anti-death penalty advocates hailed the decision, saying he was intellectually disabled and his execution would therefore have been unconstitutional.

    Bureau of Prisons records show Ortiz has been serving his sentence at a high-security penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017...cy-glance.html
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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    Senior Member Frequent Poster Alfred's Avatar
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    Does the President have the right to reduce the punishments of non-federal death row inmates as well?

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    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    No, thankfully. Only federal and military death row thugs.

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    I'm actually quite relieved that it appears President Obama's not going to issue a blanket commutation to everyone on federal and military death row.

  10. #10
    Senior Member Member ted75601's Avatar
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    I know it's a common practice for outgoing Presidents, but I do feel that it subverts the legal system. These people were legally convicted and sentenced for whatever crimes they may have committed.

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