You should anticipate a handful of questions about the separated powers and the checks and balances on the final next week. Here are some items that popped regarding on of them.
One of the principle checks the executive has over the judiciary is the pardon (also the reprieve along with granting amnesties for a category of people). Pardons have also become something of a holiday tradition. Both Governor Abbot and President Obama participated in that tradition - the governor was much more stingy.
- Gov. Greg Abbott pardons four Texans who committed minor crimes.
- Obama’s clemency list brings joy to the lucky and anguish to the disappointed.One of the principle checks the executive has over the judiciary is the pardon (also the reprieve along with granting amnesties for a category of people). Pardons have also become something of a holiday tradition. Both Governor Abbot and President Obama participated in that tradition - the governor was much more stingy.
- Gov. Greg Abbott pardons four Texans who committed minor crimes.
Grits for Breakfast is unimpressed with Abbot's 4 pardons and wonders why there isn't a greater call for large scale pardons for non-violent drug offenders. There's been a movement in that direction both on the state and national level.
- Thanks for nothing, Greg Abbott: Why conservatives should demand 'industrial-scale' clemency.
I'm not a great fan of the Christmastime pardon tradition, but at least it acknowledges the gubernatorial function. So far, Greg Abbott has shirked this responsibility. To his discredit, in Abbott's first year as governor, Barack Obama has granted clemency to more Texans than him, and Obama's clemency record is abysmal.
It's not like the Texas governor really does much: Sign or veto bills, make appointments, and clemency really are the main things on his plate under the state constitution. But one of those three has been all but abandoned.
The American Conservative this week published an article lamenting "small trickles of clemency" by President Obama and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo "where what is demanded is a rushing, roaring pipeline scaled to the globally unprecedented size of our prison population and incarceration rate. We need industrial-scale clemency."
As the author recognized, "the real action is at the state level, which handles most policing, sentencing, and imprisoning." In this discussion, former Gov. Rick Perry made an appearance among "recent governors [who] have distinguished themselves with their appalling miserliness." Citing a data point which originated with research on Grits, he declared that "Rick Perry appointed a clemency board of tough-on-crime hardcases, then rejected two-thirds of their pardon and commutation endorsements."
Clemency these days mostly comes up in the context of capital murder and innocence cases. But this article suggests that governors embrace "industrial-scale" clemency aimed at reversing mass incarceration.
And in the world of celebrity pardons:
- A Christmastime Pardon for Robert Downey Jr.
The actor, who spent more than a year in prison following a drug conviction in 1996, was among 91 people pardoned Thursday by California Governor Jerry Brown.
