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Obama has now
granted a total of 673 commutations during his presidency, more
than the number granted by the 10 previous presidents combined,
as he seeks to reform the criminal justice system, it said.
For some of the convicts, the commutations mean they will serve
only half of their original prison sentences. For instance, Sly
Stallone Aikens of South Carolina, serving a sentence of 360
months for using and carrying a gun during a drug trafficking
crime, will now serve only 180 months.
More than one-third of the 673 convicts had been serving life
sentences.
Obama has made reducing the number of people serving long
sentences for nonviolent drug offenses a priority. It is one of
the rare issues where the president gets support from Republican
lawmakers.
He launched the clemency program in 2014, inviting thousands of
drug offenders and others to seek early release. It was the most
ambitious such program in 40 years, but it has struggled under a
flood of thousands of unprocessed cases.
The White House counsel, Neil Eggleston, said he expects Obama
will continue to grant commutations through the end of his
presidency, which ends on Jan. 20. But only legislation passed
by Congress can "achieve the broader reforms needed to ensure
our federal sentencing system operates more fairly and
effectively," Eggleston said.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by
Jeffrey Benkoe and Jonathan Oatis)
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