November 15, 2013 (10 minutes reading time. An Essay On Pardons.) . The formula for calculating the Reprieve and Pardon Ratio for all Presidents is as follows: . R/Y divided by Sr100K/3M divided by PI = CR . where . R = Number of Reprieves and pardons granted . Y = Years in office per President . S = Start of term population of the United States for each President (1885 for Cleveland) . r100K = rounded off to the nearest 100,000 or 1 million . 3M is 3 million . and . PI is the percentage of inmate population in the USA compared to the entire population of the United States at the time each successive President took office (From 1789 to the mid 1970s, this is at a constant 0.1%) . R/Y divided by Sr100K/3M gives us the PARDONING FREQUENCY. . The pardoning frequency divided by the percentage of people in the country who are incarcerated gives us the CLEMENCY RATIO or PARDONING RATIO. . Here is how this works: George Washington granted 16 Reprieves and Pardons during his eight years in office. The population of the United States when Washington took office in 1789 was approximately 3.6 million; as the first decennial US Census in 1790 counted 3, 929, 214 Americans. Therefore the clemency ratio (CR) of George Washington is 16 divided by 8, divided by 1.2 divided by 0.1 = George Washington = 16.667 . Now, the number of reprieves and pardons granted by each President is listed before their names (if possible) and the pardoning ratio after their names. . Why is a PARDONING RATIO or CLEMENCY RATIO necessary? Why not just count the number of pardons to see clearly what the story is on Presidential pardons and let it go at that? . The country of Luxembourg, for example, has a population of about one million, while China has a population of one billion. If the leader of Luxembourg and the leader of China each pardon 999 people during the same year, are the leaders of both countries equally merciful? OF COURSE NOT. The leader of Luxembourg is 1,000 times more merciful than the leader of China if this were the case, because he has pardoned 1,000 times more people per capita. But thats not all: . The percentage of people who are imprisoned or incarcerated at any time must be taken into consideration. For example, even if the population of the United States was exactly the same in number from the time of George Washington to Barack Obama, the fact that the percentage of incarcerated Americans is over twelve times higher today than when Washington was President (and perhaps MUCH higher than that) should impel Obama to be twelve times more diligent in granting pardons than George Washington was - so all things being equal, Obama should ideally have a pardoning frequency twelve times greater than that of Washington, just to keep up with the standard of clemency of George Washington. . There are other factors to be taken into consideration, one of which is this: If George Washington had a pardoning ratio of only 16.667, and Thomas Jefferson had a pardoning ratio of 87.5, part of the reason for that may be that Jefferson inherited a backlog of malicious prosecutions from John Adams administration, as a result of the Alien and Sedition Acts; whereas George Washington - as the first President of the United States - hadnt inherit any pardoning backlog at all from any previous President. . Here, then, are the pardoning ratios of the Presidents from Washington to Obama. The classifications of Presidents are as follows: . DIO = Died in office prior to the Thanksgiving (the traditional beginning of pardoning season) of the year of inauguration. NOTE: The Presidents who died in office prior to one year as President do not have a clemency ratio, since the issue of clemency never came up when they were President. . (F) 0.1 or less: CRUELLY ABDICATIVE level - HORRIBLE perhaps obscenely merciless, or sabotaged by underlings or simply abdicating a major Constitutional responsibility as President. . (D) Above 0.1 to 0.5: Woefully negligent and irresponsible . (C-) Above 0.5 to 1: Unreasonably STINGY or negligent. . (C) Above 1, to 5: At least six out of eight of the above pejoratives. . (B-) Above 5, to 10: Excessively overcautious, ill-advised or negligent . (B) Above 10, to 50: Slightly overcautious, ill-advised or negligent. . (B+) Above 50 to 100: Moderately cautious, or no emphasis on clemency. . (A-) Above 100 to 1,000 Beneficently merciful in many instances. . (A) Above 1,000 to 5,000 Conscientious about righting historic wrongs. . (A+) Above 5,000 Strong emphasis on overcoming a clemency backlog. . George Washington should not be given a grade, actually, because he had no predecessor, and the comparison with Washington is completely hindsight. . Here is the list: . Number of pardons........Name..................Pardoning Ratio.......Grade . 16 George Washington 16.667 B 21 John Adams 30.882 B 119 Thomas Jefferson 87.5 B+ 196 James Madison 102.083 A- 419 James Monroe 180.603 A- 183 John Quincy Adams 120.395 A- 386 Andrew Jackson 123.718 A- . 168 Martin Van Buren 89 B+ DIO William Henry Harrison Died in office after 30 days . 209 John Tyler 88.861 B+ 268 James K. Polk 111.667 A- . 38 Zachary Taylor 44.97 B 170 Millard Fillmore 87.449 B+ 142 Franklin Pierce 51.205 B+ 150 James Buchanan 40.761 B . 343+ Abraham Lincoln 81.62 B+ 7,654+ Andrew Johnson 1,715.374 A+ . 1,332+ Ulysses S. Grant* 133.2 A- 893 Rutherford B. Hayes 148.833 A- DIO James Garfield Died in office after 6 months 337 Chester Alan Arthur 57.627 B+ 1,107 Grover Cleveland 73.997 B+ 613+ Benjamin Harrison 74.756 A+ * . 918 William McKinley 83.698 A+ ** 981 Teddy Roosevelt 50.782 B+ . 758 William Howard Taft 63.167 B+ 2,480 Woodrow Wilson 93.939 B+ . 800 Warren G. Harding 95.238 B+ 1,545 Calvin Coolidge 74.566 B+ 1,385 Herbert Hoover 86.563 B+ . 3,687 Franklin D. Roosevelt 72.55 B+ 2,044 Harry Truman 56.247 B+ 1,157 Dwight D. Eisenhower 27.813 B . 575+ John F. Kennedy 33.983 B*** 1,187 Lyndon B. Johnson 36.373 B . 926 Richard M. Nixon 24.789 B 409+ Gerald R. Ford 24.969 B 566+ Jimmy Carter 15.515 B**** . 406 Ronald Reagan 4.39 C 77 George Bush Sr. 0.19 D ***** . 459 Bill Clinton 1.91 C 200 George Bush Jr. 0.55 C- 40 Barack Obama, Jr. 0.074 F . * Benjamin Harrison was President when Utah became a State. Benjamin Harrison, as President, granted a blanket pardon for all Mormons in the matter of polygamy. . **William Mc Kinley was shot in Buffalo at a political- industrial event. Right after he was shot, even before he gave instructions to how to break the news to his ailing wife (Be careful how you tell her!) the gasping McKinley, barely able to breathe, told the police, Be gentle with him, boys, Dont be too rough on him... referring to their arrest of Czolgocz, McKinleys assailant. Mc Kinley thus GRANTED A PRESIDENTIAL REPRIEVE of sorts to his own assasin - an act unparalleled among all edicts of clemency ever issued by any leader of any nation. McKinley had a bad heart - but at the same time, a very good heart. . ***John F. Kennedy used his pardoning power to overturn a Federal law which he considered to be unconstitutional - the Narcotics Control Act of 1956; when Kennedy pardoned all first-time offenders. . ****Jimmy Carter, on his first day in office, extended Fords conditional pardon of Vietnam War draft evaders and deserters to an unconditional pardon. . ***** George Bush Sr. ushered in an era of clemency collapse by granting only 77 reprieves and pardons during his four years in office - despite the fact that Bush Sr. took office at a time when, for the first time in the history of the United States, the prison population of the United States exceeded one million people - double what it was when Reagan took office. It might be argued that the clemency collapse began under Reagans Presidency. This pardoning collapse on the part of George Bush Sr. is especially reprehensible in view of the following: a) The doubling of the US prison population of inmates from 550,000 to 1.1 million when Reagan was President - the beginning of the American Gulag at precisely the time when the Iron Curtain was falling and the Soviet Union was abandoning its own Gulag Archipelago. b) No class of people has benefited more from Presidential pardons since 1989, when Bush Sr. became President.. than the political cronies of the Bush Republican-fascist political machine. Everybody else can apparently forget about clemency. c) No President since Jimmy Carter has had a Pardoning Ratio of more than 5. The raw average pardoning ratios of the past five Presidents, from Reagan to Obama, is 1.7. . The same formula was used to derive the pardoning ratios or clemency ratio of every President. . Of those Presidents who lived long enough into their first year in office to grant any pardons at all, Barack Obama is the lowest rated on clemency. . Here is a list of all Presidents as they rank on purely enumerative clemency ratings, as described above: . TOP: 1 Andrew Johnson 1,715.374 . 2 James Monroe 180.603 . 3 Rutherford B. Hayes 148.833 . 4 Ulysses S. Grant 137.2 . 5 Andrew Jackson 123.718 . 6 John Quincy Adams 120.395 . 7 James K. Polk 111.667 . 8 James Madison 102.083 . 9 Warren G. Harding 95.238 . 10 Woodrow Wilson 93.939 . 11 Martin Van Buren 89 . 12 John Tyler 88.861 . 13 Thomas Jefferson 87.5 . 14 Millard Fillmore 87.449 . 15 Herbert Hoover 86.563 . 16 William McKinley 83.698 . 17 Abraham Lincoln 81.62 . 18 Benjamin Harrison 74.756 . 19 Calvin Coolidge 74.566 . 20 Grover Cleveland 73.997 . 21 Franklin D. Roosevelt 72.55 . 22 William Howard Taft 63.167 . 23 Chester A. Arthur 57.627 . 24 Harry S. Truman 56.247 . 25 Franklin Pierce 51.205 . 26 Teddy Roosevelt 50.782 . 27 Zachary Taylor 44.97 . 28 James Buchanan 40.761 . 29 Lyndon B. Johnson 36.373 . 30 John F. Kennedy 33.983 . 31 John Adams 30.882 . 32 Dwight D. Eisenhower 27.813 . 33 Gerald Ford 24.969 . 34 Richard M. Nixon 24.789 . 35 George Washington 16.667 . 36 Jimmy Carter 15.515 . 37 Ronald Reagan 4.39 . 38 Bill Clinton 1.91 . 39 George Bush, Jr. 0.55 . 40 George Bush, Sr. 0.19 . 41 Barack Obama, Jr. 0.074 . Why are there only 41 Presidents listed when Obama is the 44th President in sequence? . Remember, two Presidents cannot be listed here, William Henry Harrison and James Garfield; because they died in office prior to being able to grant any pardons at all. . Also, Grover Cleveland is only listed on this list as one listing. He is listed twice on the official listing, as the 22nd and the 24th President, because he took four years off between terms, on the advice of the Electoral College. . Every living former President has a moral obligation - a moral imperative, no less - to demand that President Obama bring his pardoning ratio up from worst on the list, to best on the list. . In order to do that, Obama will have to extend the traditional use of the Presidential power to grant reprieves and pardons, in the following ways: . a) Obama should honor John F. Kennedy, on the 50th year after his passing, by immediately and without delay granting a Presidential pardon and reprieve to all American citizens and US nationals who have been convicted of no more than one drug offense. Their records should be expunged, and they should receive a fair compensation to enable them to get back on their feet without stumbling. Thats no joke, by the way. The fact that these people have criminal records for an offense which is in almost every case harmless (except to themselves, in terms of lost time from work and time spent away from loved ones and undergoing harsh prison conditions) prevents most from obtaining suitable employment. . b) Before ANYONE in Government opens their mouths about raising the minimum wage one more time, they should make sure that millions - yes MILLIONS of Americans whose criminal records prevent them from finding new living-wage employment or re-obtaining former employment, in a way which really doesnt protect anyone or serve any public interest at all, should have their records expunged and be able to start life over again with a clean slate including restored credit and reduced insurance rates (which expungement will achieve for them). These expungements should not only be granted to these first time drug offenders, but to ALL people in the United States convicted of any harmless offense at any level - Federal, State or otherwise- under US jurisdiction. . c) Any person in the United States who has applied for a pardon from the Governor of their state, with regard to offenses for which the same person to whom they applied was also involved in their conviction, should be granted a pardon by the President on grounds of Article Four, Section Four guarantee of constitutional form of state Government, since most State pardoning boards are in reality no more than political tools of sitting Governors; and situations such as this are an obvious conflict of interest of unconstitutional intensity which would only be tolerated or overlooked by an inherently corrupt Administration. . d) Any person who has been subjected to a Constitutional violation in the process of an indictment, arrest, prosecution, court proceeding, trial, prosecution, conviction, sentencing or setting of bail against them should be pardoned by the President at least in that context, and possibly be granted a wider pardon and reprieve and compensation than the situation under review immediately calls for, if the situation is grave enough in terms of unconstitutional infringement. This should apply even to victims of unconstitutional treatment at the hands of State, county, municipal, or local governments, including condominium shadow governments and other similar private associations. This use of the Presidential power to grant pardons and reprieves to victims of Constitutional violations committed, caused or abetted by governments or quasi-governments below the Federal level is an absolute requirement of the Presidential Oath of Office, which requires the President to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution in a manner which is without question indivisible, and does not stop where Federal and State jurisdiction meet, or at any other Federal delimitation. There is NOTHING in the Constitution which prevents the President from exercising a beneficial and non-harmful use of power in order to restore Constitutional rights when these rights have been trampled upon, and the sequence of the Second Article of the Constitution strongly indicates that the PURPOSE of the Presidential power to grant reprieves and pardons is primarily to enable the President to have sufficient power to uphold his own Oath of Office unilaterally, in a way that cannot be reversed or questioned. The words offences against the United States can mean a State offence, as well as a Federal offense; however the Constitution does not employ language which restricts the Presidents pardoning power ONLY to granting pardons and reprieves for Federal offenses and for no other purpose. (In reality, the way full Faith and Credit applies today, there is no such thing as a State offense in any state which can be separably demarcated and definitively distinguished from offenses against EVERY State.) In fact, the Constitution does not require that the person to whom a pardon shall be granted shall have committed any offense at all: the Federal offence in question to which the Constitution refers can just as easily be interpreted actively as referring to AN OFFENSE AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION COMMITTED BY SOMEONE IN GOVERNMENT AGAINST THE PERSON TO WHOM A PARDON AND REPRIEVE WILL BE GRANTED BY THE PRESIDENT. This would be more preservative of the Oath of Office than pardoning those who have actually committed crimes. Any interpretation of the Constitution which sets a standard which places guilty parties on a higher pedestal than those who are innocent victims of guilty parties is a Fourteenth Amendment violation. The rule book on pardons must be thrown out and replaced with the restorative standard described in the foregoing - unless President Obama wants to be remembered as 0.07 by the history books. . The numbers in this rating system do not lie. The considerations brought into the formula R/Y divided by Sr100K/3M divided by PI = CR are all considerations which are so meaningful in evaluating pardoning patterns of Presidents, that none can be regarded lightly or cast aside without harm to the truth. . This is NOT a diatribe AGAINST President Obama. This is not an attempt to slur the President or to make light of his accomplishments, or to conduct some type of smear campaign against President Obama, or to motion for his impeachment; however I will say that if President Obama will not follow the advice here, he will be one step closer to impeachment and he should resign for his own good in that case, while he still can - and he should allow Joe Biden to do this. This is advice which is offered for the Presidents own good and for the good of the United States. If the President were to follow this advice, this would be an ACTION which would placate the increasingly hostile world opinion against the United States and against this Administration which would go farther than all the words in the world toward restoring faith and trust in the United States. . In other words, this is advice that will save this damaged Administration, if the President is able to hear it, digest it thoughtfully, reflect on the relationship of this advice to his Oath of Office and realize the potential economic stimulus benefits which this would automatically bring about in the worst-impacted poverty pockets of the United States. This is especially true if the President will sit down with the author of the 52-part Pardon and Reprieve, and see what can be done to grant most if not all of these pardons as well as the ancillary List of 37; and in that context the President is well-advised to replace the sitting US Pardon Attorney with a new and better one who can and will do the job: and that qualified and motivated individual is Governor Don Siegelman of Alabama who is himself in need of a Presidential pardon and reprieve which most of his supporters feel is long overdue and more than justified - and the Dontivists have talked themselves blue in the face explaining their eminently sensible case for clemency for this great American. . Don Siegelman, an expert in international law who has an advanced degree in that illustrious field of study, but who also has meaningful experience in conducting important international negotiations for peace between nations in a way that has led to greater prosperity in America; has been imprisoned by those who are experts in international lawlessness. As long as this situation and others like it prevail and run rampant, this Administration in Washington cannot claim with any credibility to have its priorities straight. . This is no time for the President to preen in front of the cameras and offer more and more words when action is called for. This is a resolution for action which the President should embrace, because for this Adminstration, action is now its only lifeline available - and this is it. If there is any doubt about the beneficence and potential for good in this advice due to what Government advisors are whispering into the Presidents ear, then President Obama must listen to the advice of another Government official: President Nixon, in the speech given on April 30, 1973, announcing the firing of his Attorney General. President Obama needs to listen to what Nixon advises about placing too much trust in others in Government who may be protecting their own turf and gathering too much power for themselves in a way that can politically ruin a President. . Scott Davis Chairman Committee of 37 Peace Initiative PO Box 877 Edgmont, PA 19028-0877 USA
Posted on: Sun, 01 Dec 2013 18:30:09 +0000
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