Bush pardons 14 individuals

[Faygo Kid]

Source: Detroit News

WASHINGTON -- The Associated Press has learned that President George W. Bush has granted pardons to 14 individuals and commuted the prison sentences of two others.

The new round of White House pardons are Bush's first since March. The development Monday comes as Bush has less than two months left in his presidency.

Bush has been stingy about handing out such reprieves.

Including these actions, Bush has granted a total of 171 and eight commutations. That's less than half as many as Presidents Clinton or Reagan issued during their time in office. Both were two-term presidents.

Under the Constitution, the president's power to issue pardons is absolute and cannot be overruled.

Read more: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081...

---

No details available. Scooter is a done deal, though.

[yurbud]

1. I didn't know he had that many brothers...Jeb, Marvin, Neil, who are the other 11?

[MercutioATC]

10. Grumpy, Sneezy, Doc, Happy, Bashful, Sleepy...

(Bush would be Dopey)

...that leaves five...

[sofa king]

31. ... Hateful, Insider, Thumper, Paederast, and Crime.

[DogPoundPup]

2. Some details here.........

excerpt~

On the latest pardon list were:

_Leslie Owen Collier of Charleston, Mo.

_Milton Kirk Cordes of Rapid City, S.D.

_Richard Micheal Culpepper of Mahomet, Ill.

_Brenda Jean Dolenz-Helmer of Fort Worth, Texas.

_Andrew Foster Harley of Falls Church, Va.

_Obie Gene Helton of Rossville, Ga.

_Carey C. Hice Sr. of Travelers Rest, S.C.

_Geneva Yvonne Hogg of Jacksonville, Fla.

_William Hoyle McCright Jr. of Midland, Texas.

_Paul Julian McCurdy of Sulphur, Okla.

_Robert Earl Mohon Jr. of Grant, Ala.

_Ronald Alan Mohrhoff of Los Angeles.

_Daniel Figh Pue III of Conroe, Texas.

_Orion Lynn Vick of White Hall, Ark.

Bush also commuted the prison sentences of John Edward Forte of North Brunswick, N.J., and James Russell Harris of Detroit.

More at CiUMEaPc:UiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiU" target="_blank">http://www.startribune.com/politics/35012054.html?elr=K...

[Deja Q]

3. Usually a pardon is given to a criminal. Unless there are other sorts of people who aren't?

[Tarc]

4. He should be pardoning Ramos and Compean

[DogPoundPup]

5. Some Big Names Seek Pardons

"Among those seeking presidential action are former junk-bond salesman Michael Milken, who hired former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, one of the nation's most prominent GOP lawyers, to plead his case for a pardon on 1980s-era securities fraud charges. Two politicians convicted of public corruption, former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) and four-term Louisiana governor Edwin W. Edwards (D), are asking Bush to shorten their prison terms.

It remains to be seen how Bush will respond to these requests as his term ends. The president has used his broad pardon powers rarely during seven years in office, granting 157 pardons out of 2,064 petitions, and only six of 7,707 requests for commutations, according to an analysis by former Justice Department lawyer Margaret C. Love. "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

[TheWraith]

6. Scooter is not on the list. Neither is Stevens. As a matter of fact...

At first blush the list includes no one we've ever heard of.

[Ian David]

7. I've heard of the guy who killed the American Bald Eagles.

He was on the tee-vee machine once.

[BeHereNow]

8. Leonard Peltier is WAY over due

but then he'd have top be an actual criminal to
qualify for a BFEE pardon- a thief, a torturer,war criminal or something
the BFEE would feel proud of turning loose on society.

Innocent people need not apply.

http://www.aimovement.org/peltier/index.html

http://www.leonardpeltier.net /

BHN

[WriteDown]

9. You are reading my freakin' mind....

Very cool.

[BeHereNow]

12. He was eligible for parole this year-

Haven't heard squat about it.
His defense team's web site seems to have been
abandoned...
I used to get updates from them on a pretty
regular basis. Nothing for a long time.

His continued imprisonment is a travesty of justice-
perfectly normal in a country run by the BFEE.

I don't understand why more people don't protest it.

BHN

[WriteDown]

16. Hmm....

I wonder why the site is inactive. To be fair, he has been ignored by every administration since Carter.

[BeHereNow]

18. I just found out- new site, had to start over.

Apparently the old team sort of disappeared...
here is the new official site-
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info /

Let's get a "sign the petition thread going over in GD, whaddya say?
Meet me over there in a few minutes.
BHN

[WriteDown]

19. Steak in like 5 minutes...

I'll be back tonight though.

[BeHereNow]

20. Oki-

Enjoy your supper.
BHN

[WriteDown]

24. Brazilian steakhouses are my weakness....

Did you ever start a "sign the petition" thread?

[wizstars]

11. I wholeheartedly agree....

...but do you think the dipsh1t in the Oval Office would? I don't think LP was exactly a pillar of conservative ideology.....

[BeHereNow]

15. Like I said above- he'd need to be guilty of something huge to make the list.

Like good old Marc Rich who was pardoned by Clinton.
To this day, I despise Clinton for his refusal to free LP
while he saw it perfectly appropriate to let Rich off the hook.

BHN

[WriteDown]

17. Carter, Reagan, Bushler I, Clinton, Bushler II....

the list goes on.

[Divine Discontent]

13. several pardons for Cocaine......

cough cough.

Many different Yes We Did items in the Obama/Biden section www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. It's a feature of your government that sullies the very presidency, itself.

It's beyond parody. So mnay criminal friends required to further their career.

[Psephos]

22. It's a mechanism designed by the Founders to increase checks and balances

The entire Constitution is an attempt to increase separation of powers, and provide remedies for when one division of government usurps power from the others.

Hamilton especially was concerned about instituting a safety valve for social crises. He felt that in perilous times, forgiveness of punishment by the President could be an important tool for calming mob-type unrest. He also felt that ability to absolve an unjust judgment would provide a fail-safe against a court that lost its bearings.

There's considerably more about these and other arguments in The Federalist Papers No. 74, and it makes for fascinating reading.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/fed/blfed74.htm

[Joe Chi Minh]

25. Interesting to hear - particularly that it goes back tot he Constitution. However,

surely it is abundantly clear that its use to absolve criminals who have rendered assistance, today, notably, financial, to the President is a laughably grotesque distortion of any sane purpose its original conception may have served.

[slackmaster]

27. Does not the monarch of the UK enjoy a similar blanket power to pardon?

I'm pretty sure she does.

[Joe Chi Minh]

28. I don't doubt that at all. But does she use it to pardon convicts from the business

community, who might, for instance, contribute to charities she heads. Not a chance. If our Prime Ministers had the power, do you think they would be allowed to get away with pardoning such convicts/political friends? Not a chance!

As it is, if an MP fails to declare money given to his office for their party's political purposes, there is hell to pay, via the press and police investigations. Though the fact that they keep doing it suggests that any sanctions against such omissions are nowhere near strong enough. Nevertheless, it is thought - if I remember correctly - that such money, believed to have been given in return for a knighthood, added significantly to the pressure on Blair to quit when he did.

The following is an excerpt on the subject in Wikipedia:

"The power to grant pardons and reprieves is a royal prerogative of mercy of the monarch of the United Kingdom. It was traditionally in the absolute power of the monarch to pardon and release an individual who had been convicted of a crime from that conviction and its intended penalty. Pardons were granted to many in the 18th century on condition that the convicted felons accept transportation overseas, such as to Australia. The first General Pardon in England was issued in celebration of the coronation of Edward III in 1327. In 2006 all British soldiers executed for cowardice during World War I were pardoned, resolving a long-running controversy about the justice of their executions. (See Armed Forces Act 2006, <1>.)

There are significant procedural differences in the present use of the royal pardon, however. Today the monarch may only grant a pardon on the advice of the Home Secretary or the First Minister of Scotland (or the Defence Secretary in military justice cases), and the policy of the Home Office and Scottish Executive is only to grant pardons to those who are "morally" innocent of the offence (as opposed to those who may have been wrongly convicted by misapplication of the law). Pardons are generally no longer issued prior to conviction, but only after conviction. A pardon is no longer considered to remove the conviction itself, but only removes the penalty which was imposed. Use of the prerogative is now rare, particularly since the establishment of the Criminal Cases Review Commission and Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which provide a statutory remedy for miscarriages of justice."

As you will have noted, there is not the remotest chance of a person rightly convicted of a serious crime being pardoned by the monarch, the Home Secretary or the First Secretary of Scotland, implicitly or explicitly for "services rendered" in terms of their office and career. We're used to corruption in high places here in the UK, but such pardons would be considered not just grotesque but laughably so. Though a lot that is grotesque to the point of being laughable does occur all the time here now on a level that stupid rather than abysmally corrupt.

The farcical point about the whole presidential pardons business in the US is that it is openly institutionalised corruption, quite respectable people will seek to justify as hallowed by immemorial law and custom. Even though you don't need a law degree to recognise that it is clearly an open and very public invitation to rich and powerful recidivists to collude with presidents in the furtherance of their career - as a "quid pro quo" in respect of a pardon for criminal behaviour, which might even have been antecedent and not related to the President and his dealings, as far as I understand. Buying knighthoods is bad enough, but pardoning felonies on a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" basis, is a very different matter.

It seems to me there is a deep-seated unwillingness to look at this question rationally by many people connected with the "anything goes" type of politics we've witnessed in recent years in elections, where, when allowed to, the Republicans didn't just extend a blanket amnesty to election felonies by their side, but actively colluded in creating the means for their commission. Maybe the fault lies in the nature of our adversarial court procedures as a kind of "tournament" between two sets of lawyers, rather than an investigation into the truth of the matter in question. A human construct that has become all too human and for that matter, too "financial," for even our defectible human justice, the common good to be the foremost consideration.

[slackmaster]

26. I for one am in no position to criticize Presidential pardons

If not for President Wilson pardoning my grandfather for his failed claim of Conscientious Objector status during World War I, I would not be here.

My grandfather was originally sentenced to life in prison for treason. He and about 42 other young men from pacifict religious sects attempted to claim exemption from any kind of participation in the war, and had their claims rejected by a draft board. It was a serious miscarriage of justice.

[Joe Chi Minh]

29. That is the sort of pardon that is still exercised in the UK. Where moral innocence

is held to be at issue, not an ultimately criminal intent.

There have been many freedom-fighters/patriots/terrorists pardoned in Northern Ireland - an amnesty. Of course, the individuals concerned will have ranged from criminal, essential pyschopaths to courageous patriots, since, on the one side you have a people who have never accepted the occupation of their country, more recently a part of it by the British and their agents, Scottish colonists; while, on the other side, you have the descendants of those early colonists, who were born and grew up acculturated with the conviction that it was their country now, and whose mindset has been poisoned by the centuries' old siege the country has been under, one way or other, by the Republican Irish patriots.

They're no better or worse than any other people and have reacted in the same way as any other people would. Although I'm not sure most other nationalities would have been so bloody-mindedly obstinate as the Irish; but that is a feature of essentially easy-going people who feel unjustly treated. No-one more determined. In other words, both communities are victims of the circumstances imposed on the country they inhabit under British imperial rule. I'm not an expert on empire, but there seems to be an enormous weight of evidence to suggest that our rule over Ireland would figure among our most shameful imperial rules; the indigenous Irish having, at one time, even been denied formal schooling.

There are plenty in our Establishment familiar with the history of Ireland and the situation of the Irish in Northern Ireland, including the widow of diplomat who had been murdered, who have publicly stated that they understand to some extent the grievances of the Irish Republican community in Northern Ireland.

[NikolaC]

21. Here's The List

From Yahoo News:

_Leslie Owen Collier of Charleston, Mo. She was convicted for unauthorized use of a pesticide and violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

_Milton Kirk Cordes of Rapid City, S.D. Cordes was convicted of conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act, which prohibits importation into the country of wildlife taken in violation of conservation laws.

_Richard Micheal Culpepper of Mahomet, Ill., who was convicted of making false statements to the federal government.

_Brenda Jean Dolenz-Helmer of Fort Worth, Texas, for reporting or helping cover up a crime.

_Andrew Foster Harley of Falls Church, Va. Harley was convicted of wrongful use and distribution of marijuana and cocaine.

_Obie Gene Helton of Rossville, Ga., whose offense was unauthorized acquisition of food stamps.

_Carey C. Hice Sr. of Travelers Rest, S.C., who was convicted of income tax evasion.

_Geneva Yvonne Hogg of Jacksonville, Fla., convicted of bank embezzlement.

_William Hoyle McCright Jr. of Midland, Texas, who was sentenced for making false entries, books, reports or statements to a bank.

_Paul Julian McCurdy of Sulphur, Okla., who was sentenced for misapplication of bank funds.

_Robert Earl Mohon Jr. of Grant, Ala., who was convicted of conspiracy to distribute marijuana.

_Ronald Alan Mohrhoff of Los Angeles, who was convicted for unlawful use of a telephone in a narcotics felony.

_Daniel Figh Pue III of Conroe, Texas, convicted of illegal treatment, storage and disposal of a hazardous waste without a permit.

_Orion Lynn Vick of White Hall, Ark., who was convicted of aiding and abetting the theft of government property.

Bush also commuted the prison sentences of John Edward Forte of North Brunswick, N.J., and James Russell Harris of Detroit, Mich. Both were convicted of cocaine offenses.

[Rhiannon12866]

23. K&R. New link:

(11-25) 04:00 PST Washington --

Breaking a logjam of hundreds of pent-up clemency requests, President Bush granted pardons to 14 people on Monday and shortened the prison terms of two others.

The majority of the felons who won leniency from Bush are far from household names.

Andrew Harley of Falls Church, Va., was pardoned for wrongful use and distribution of marijuana and cocaine after a court-martial by the Air Force Academy in 1985 caused him to forfeit his pay and prompted his dismissal from the service. Leslie Collier of Charleston, Mo., had been convicted of unauthorized use of a registered pesticide. Obie Helton of Rossville, Ga., was pardoned after conviction on charges of acquiring food stamps without proper permission and sentenced to two years' probation in 1983.

Several other offenders who won leniency Monday were convicted of run-of-the-mill white-collar crimes such as bank embezzlement, tax evasion or accounting violations. Pardons give their recipients greater leeway to find jobs, live in public housing and vote, among other privileges.

Bush pardons 14, cuts prison time for 2 others
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/1...

[Joe Chi Minh]

30. More power to his elbow for that kind of pardon, Rhiannon. I had in mind political

financiers.