Pennsylvania’s presidential pardon history

Plenty of people have been preoccupied with presidential pardons recently. Last week, President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter, and this week, he announced that he’s commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 inmates this week. 

These moves come as President-elect Donald Trump continues to claim he intends to pardon “most” rioters accused or convicted of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in one of the first official acts of his second presidency. 

With that in mind, we’re taking a look back at the history of presidential pardons – and Pennsylvania’s place in it. 

Pardon policy 

The Constitution gives the president “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” The two most common forms of clemency are pardons – where the person is absolved of a crime – and commutations – where the conviction doesn’t change but the person’s sentence is reduced. 

Presidents have used the pardon process to varying degrees over the years, with Barack Obama issuing nearly 2,000 acts of clemency during his second term to give reprieve to those who had already served significant time for a nonviolent drug offense. Trump went in the other direction during his first term as president, issuing just 206 clemency acts during his presidency – although many were controversial or tied to Trump’s close friends and allies. 

Biden’s move this week to commute the sentences of more than 1,000 inmates was the largest one-day clemency act in the country’s history. He also pardoned 39 people convicted of non-violent crimes, including drug offenses. 

Among other famous pardons: Mormon Church founder and Salt Lake City founder Brigham Young and mobster and known labor leader James Hoffa. Hoffa, who was sentenced for fraud and jury tampering, had his sentence commuted by President Richard Nixon – who himself was infamously pardoned by his vice president Gerald Ford after the Watergate scandal. 

Pennsylvania’s past

The first presidential pardons were two individuals from Southwestern Pennsylvania. In 1794, in what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion, a group of whiskey-producing farmers fed up with a costly federal tax on distilled spirits took to the streets and burned the home of a local tax inspector. 

Fearing a possible uprising, George Washington reluctantly marched a 13,000-strong militia into western Pennsylvania to quell the rebellion. More than 20 members of the mob were arrested and two were convicted of treason and sentenced to death by hanging. But to avoid further discontent, Washington chose to pardon both men in July 1795.

Kids-for-Cash judge commutation prompts backlash

President Joe Biden’s decision to commute the sentence of former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan – a judge at the center of the infamous “Kids for Cash” scandal that saw two Luzerne County judges send kids to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks – drew immediate backlash this week. Conahan was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison in 2011, according to the New York Post. 

Republican state Sen. Lisa Baker, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, ripped Biden’s decision to commute the sentence of Conahan, calling the move “incomprehensible and indefensible.” “Where does ruining the lives of vulnerable kids in order to enrich oneself warrant a presidential commutation?” Baker said Friday in a statement. “It is truly disheartening to see a national leader on criminal justice issues for decades so wantonly undermine the rule of equal justice in his waning days.”

Sandy Fonzo, a mother whose child died by suicide after being placed in a juvenile detention center, told The Citizen’s Voice in a statement that she was shocked and hurt by the news. “Conahan‘s actions destroyed families, including mine, and my son‘s death is a tragic reminder of the consequences of his abuse of power,” she said.

According to the paper, Conahan was released to home confinement in Florida under federal supervision in June 2020.

There have been a number of failed congressional efforts over the years to clarify and curb the use of presidential pardons and commutations, including the 2020 Abuse of the Pardon Prevention Act, which would, among other things, require the Justice Department and the president to provide Congress materials pertaining to the pardoned individual’s prosecution and pardon; the Presidential Pardon Transparency Act of 2019, which, according to the website Just Security, would “require the president to publish the issue-date, recipient, and full text of each pardon or reprieve”; and a proposed constitutional amendment from U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen to “prohibit a president from pardoning himself or herself, family members, current or former members of a president’s administration and paid members of his or her campaign staff.”