100 Organizations Call on President Biden to Grant Clemency for 10,000 Pending Petitions Tied to 1994 Crime Bill

Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Re: Exercising your Executive Power to Grant Clemency and Uphold the United States as a Nation of Second Chances

Dear President Biden:

The People’s Coalition for Safety and Freedom, Popular Democracy, and more than 100 organizations representing individuals and communities harmed by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (1994 Crime Bill) and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 urge you to pardon and commute the sentences of all 10,000 pending clemency petitions before your presidency ends. This includes prioritizing the release of Michelle West, and Leonard Peltier. We also request that you issue an Executive Order to establish an independent Clemency Review Board In alignment with your proposal in 2020 to pass legislation to end the federal death penalty and your encouragement to states to end it, we also urge you to immediately commute the sentences of all 40 people on death row.

As the lead author of the 1994 Crime Bill and a major supporter of a number of bills in the 1980s, all of which have severely harmed Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poorly-resourced communities around the country for a generation, you have a moral and social obligation to repair these harms inflicted on our communities.

President Biden, you have expressed regret for helping write and signing the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. You are well aware of the horrific sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine that has had devastating effects on Black and poor communities throughout the country. You have attempted to change some of its worst provisions by supporting the EQUAL Act, which would have ended the crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity. The 1994 Crime Bill has also inflicted enormous harms on Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor communities through its punitive and draconian sentencing provisions, such as Truth-in-Sentencing, the three-strikes law, and mandatory minimums that have led to longer unfair sentences, and helped accelerate mass incarceration. These provisions have worsened family separation, effectively criminalized mental health conditions, and made it more difficult to invest in communities through harm reduction, affordable and accessible housing, afterschool programs, child care, and job training programs that keep our communities safe.

You have expressed a desire to implement strategies that research shows will have the best chance of making communities safer. Research generally shows that harsh sentencing laws do not keep communities safer, in fact, they create enormous collateral damage. A growing body of research supports that investing in communities–through access to affordable housing, healthcare, education, etc–is a more effective strategy to keep us all safe. As we move towards this goal, we also must rectify the ongoing harms created by these laws. The Fair Sentencing Act and the First Step Act have made progress in reducing unjust sentences; however, thousands of individuals remain unjustly incarcerated due to the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Now you have an opportunity to further your commitment to reshaping policies that have perpetuated systemic racism and classism and disproportionately impacted communities of color and poor people. We urge you to leverage your clemency authority to rectify the injustices that have proven difficult to address through legislative means.

Before you leave the White House, you must act on your words that “America is a nation founded on the promise of second chances” by prioritizing an ambitious clemency initiative that pardons or commutes the sentences of the approximately 10,000 pending clemency petitions. We strongly encourage you to employ your clemency powers in a broad sweep of categories of people and cases including the elderly and chronically ill, those on death row, people with unjustified sentencing disparities, those who were first incarcerated as minors, people who have served 20 plus years, primary care providers of elderly parents, minors and/or dependent adult children, and women and gender expansive people who were punished for defending themselves against their abusers. We urge you to take immediate action so that you may leave a more meaningful legacy than the current numbers reflect.

We also implore you to establish an independent Clemency Review Board within the Executive Branch, outside of the U.S. Department of Justice preventing future backlog of petitions and ensuring an improved process for future US presidents to exercise the pardon power. We highly recommend balancing the input and decision making process of this review board by including formerly incarcerated individuals that have demonstrated that 2nd chances can and do work.

Exercising your pardon power is just one step in centering care and respect for the human dignity our people and communities are owed, including those who are elderly, sick, and have served decades-long sentences due to mandatory minimums that never allowed for judicial discretion.

Bring our people home.

Sincerely,

Popular Democracy in Action
People’s Coalition for Safety and Freedom
1Hood Power
215 People’s Alliance
Abolitionist Law Center
Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment
Action Center on Race and the Economy
Action North Carolina
Advancement Project
AIDS United
All of Us or None - Texas
All of Us or None - Riverside
Alliance for Boys and Men of Color (ABMoC)
Alliance for Educational Justice
Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools
American Friends Service Committee
Amistad Law Project
Arkansas Community Organizations
Aurora Mutual Aid
Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico
Binghamton United Methodist Mission
Black Alliance for Just Immigration
Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC)
Blue Future
Building Freedom Ohio
CASA, Inc.
Center for Coalfield Justice
Challenge II Change
Chop Wood, Carry Water Daily Actions
Churches United for Fair Housing (CUFFH)
Citizen's Lab
Communities Organizing Latine Power and Action Minnesota (COPAL-MN)
Community Change Action
Concerned Citizens for Justice
Construyamos Otro Acuerdo
Detroit Action
Dream Defenders
Education Justice Project
Families For Freedom
First Friends of New Jersey & New York
Florida For All
Florida Harm Reduction Collective
Florida Rising
Florida Student Power
For The Many
Free Hearts
FREED Texas
Fuerte Arts Movement
Hedge Clippers
Illinois Alliance For Reentry And Justice
Illinois Coalition to End Permanent Punishments
Indivisible: Narberth and Beyond
Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity
Journey for Justice
LatinoJustice PRLDEF
Latinos Unidos Siempre
Live Free Illinois
Local Progress
Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention
Maine Access Points
Maine People’s Alliance
Make the Road Connecticut
Make the Road Nevada
Make the Road New Jersey
Make the Road New York
Make the Road Pennsylvania
Millions for Prisoners New Mexico
Movement of Immigrant Leaders in PA (MILPA)
Minnesota Freedom Fund
MomsRising
Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)
New Justice Project
New York Communities for Change (NYCC)
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
Ohio Organizing Collaborative
OLÉ
One PA
Organized Communities Against Deportations
Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN)
Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition
Pennsylvania Working Families Party
People’s Action
Philadelphia Community Bail Fund
Public Citizen
Public Counsel
Reclaim Philadelphia
Refugee Support Network
Rights & Democracy
Society of the flora, fauna & friend
SPACEs In Action
Stand UP Alaska
Step Up Louisiana
Strong For All
Sunflower Community Action
TakeAction Minnesota
Texas Organizing Project
United for a New Economy
VOCAL-US
Wind of the Spirit immigrant Resource Center
Working Families Party
Working Washington