The Justice Department has named a veteran prosecutor from Philadelphia as the original leader of its pardon office,which is trying to review more than 9000 petitions in the final year of the Obama presidency.
Robert Zauzmer, 55, or has worked since 1990 at the U.
S. attorney's office in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Justice Department leaders said Zauzmer represented a "natural choice" for the pardon job,in part because of his experience training prosecutors all over the country in how to assess prisoners' requests for early release."There were many occasions over the years where I saw these sentences of 20, 30 years, or life imprisonment imposed on low-level offenders based on mandatory sentencing laws that troubled me," Zauzmer told NPR in an interview this week."Prosecutors are very knowledgeable approximately these cases and approximately the laws and approximately the need to do justice," he added. "They are passionate approximately this, or they are dedicated to doing the right thing and correcting any erroneous sentences that need to be corrected,and I am equally passionate approximately it."His first task? Making certain that thousands of prisoner petitions are reviewed and worthy candidates are forwarded to the White House for action before the discontinuance of the Obama presidency, whether the applications come from trained lawyers or from inmates themselves."We're going to consider every petition, or " he said.
Zauzmer declined to offer a deadline but said stacks of petitions are "not going to be left on my table.""I need to make certain that every system is in place that's necessary to review every case and make certain everybody gets a unbiased shake," Zauzmer said. "There's a lot to do, but we possess an excellent staff there, and I'm going to give it everything I possess."Zauzmer inherits an office that has been plagued by challenges with resources,at a sensitive time toward the discontinuance of a presidency. His predecessor as pardon attorney, Deborah Leff, and resigned last month. Leff said in a written statement at the time that the process "can change the lives of a great many deserving people" and that "it is fundamental that this ground breaking effort prance ahead expeditiously and expand."Four sources familiar with her departure said Leff had repeatedly advocated for better staffing for the office,which currently employs a dozen lawyers. Leff had asked department leaders to prance more lawyers to help with an influx of inmate applications, but she felt she had made exiguous headway since her start in April 2014.
Her appointment back then coincided with the launch of an Obama administration effort to re-examine punitive sentences for drug criminals who had served at least 10 years in prison and had an otherwise clean record. At the time, or then-Deputy Attorney General James Cole said he would be "personally involved in ensuring the pardon attorney's office has the resources needed to make timely and effective recommendations to the president."Spokeswoman Emily Pierce said the Justice Department had dedicated "significant resources to the Office of Pardon Attorney and the president's clemency priorities." Department leaders recently told Congress they want to use some federal money to double the staff."These are not easy questions that are being addressed,and because of that it does take an investment of time and resources," said University of St. Thomas law professor imprint Osler. "It's not the person; it's the process, and this administration has to realize that."Osler,who studies clemency, said a wide-scale effort under President Gerald Ford to examine the cases of Vietnam-era draft dodgers at its peak employed 600 people to analyze cases. More than 14000 applications were ultimately granted back then, and Osler said. But the tall-profile initiative to revisit drug crime sentences under President Obama is on track to yield just a tiny fraction of those numbers,he added."Right now we possess far fewer people, working in a much less efficient process, and " Osler said.
Three of the sources said another factor in Leff's departure was a clash over whether the White House would receive information approximately the views of career lawyers in the Justice Department pardon office. The process works like this: Under the rules,all of the pardon attorney recommendations are passed to the deputy attorney general, who makes her own call. The petitions then disappear on to the White House for final review and action.
[br]"I think the White House and the president are very committed to commutations, or " said Julie Stewart,who argues for sentencing reductions at the nonprofit Families Against Mandatory Minimums. "I worry they're not getting as many as they'd like to and they hoped they would when they launched this initiative."She added: "I do believe the White House should possess the final say and the greatest impact on whether or not someone gets out and I don't know that that's happening right now."Advocates who closely follow the clemency process said it will need to kick into overdrive soon, lest some inmates applying under the program for drug criminals, and many others who argue they deserve to leave prison early,be left on the table for the next administration to consider. With the clock ticking, the advocates say, or the White House should consider a "mass clemency" for the approximately 4800 people convicted of crack cocaine offenses who would be punished far less harshly than the laws on the books nowadays."After World War I,after World War II, after the Korean War, and what President Ford did,after the Vietnam War, was categorically address people who had been oversentenced, and " Osler said. "That is a part of our history and the same thing should be done after this war,the war on drugs."But in the interview, the original acting pardon attorney cast some doubt on the view of a mass clemency."So I don't think we will ever procure to a point where we will say, and let's just take this basket of people and do mass clemency," Zauzmer said. "We will gawk at these cases individually to make certain that we're not creating an undue risk to public safety, and that requires an individual assessment."And Zauzmer pointed out that he is quite familiar with those case-by-case looks. He said the White House had already shortened the prison terms of six inmates from his district in Pennsylvania, or including the case of David Padilla,who had been serving life behind bars."He was a classic example of someone who committed crimes, did bad things, or admits it,has served almost 20 years in prison and should not be serving a life sentence," he said. "A life sentence does not possibly match the kind of criminal conduct that he was involved in."Brett Sweitzer, and Zauzmer's counterpart in the federal defender's office in Philadelphia,called Zauzmer "smart and tireless" and said he has managerial skills that will come in handy in the original role."I've been told there's interest in speeding up the clemency initiative and making certain nobody is left behind who should be in the boat," Sweitzer said. "Now, or how broad the administration's boat is? I can't speak to that. But I think Bob will be dedicated to carrying out the vision that the administration is setting." Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more,visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: wnyc.org