The Political Roots of Executive Clemency

DOI10.1177/1532673X06291674
Date01 November 2006
Published date01 November 2006
Subject MatterArticles
American Politics Research
Volume 34 Number 6
November 2006 825-846
© 2006 Sage Publications
10.1177/1532673X06291674
http://apr.sagepub.com
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
825
Authors’Note: We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
We would also like to thank George Krause and Jeff Yates for their insights and suggestions.
A previous version of this article was presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Midwest
Political Science Association. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Andrew B. Whitford, Department of Public Administration and Policy, University of Georgia,
204 Baldwin Hall, Athens, GA 30602-1615; e-mail: aw@uga.edu.
The Political Roots of
Executive Clemency
Andrew B. Whitford
University of Georgia
Holona L. Ochs
University of Kansas
It is widespread conventional wisdom that presidential pardons—the only
way for offenders to remove or eliminate all disabilities that arise from a fed-
eral or military offense—are political. We move beyond this belief and assess
five broad ways that federal pardons may be systematically influenced by the
policy agendas present in a separated powers system. We model the aggre-
gate dispensation of clemency appeals (requests for pardons) using Prais-
Winsten regression and find that the probability of denials for executive
clemency reflects the president’s own agenda and ideological position, con-
gressional attention to criminal justice issues, and the homicide rate. In sum,
both policy signals and the political processes they signify permeate the pres-
idential pardons process.
Keywords: presidency; executive branch; pardons; clemency; executive
privilege; criminal justice; separated powers; policy signals; policy agendas
The waning days of the Clinton administration brought at least one unex-
pected surprise as the news media centered their investigations on
mounting evidence that the president, following earlier U.S. presidents, had
left a trail of controversial pardons in his wake. He pardoned or commuted
the prison sentences of 176 people on his last day in office, including fugitive
Marc Rich, a billionaire accused of tax evasion who also happened to be the
former husband of a major Clinton donor. Other notable pardoned individu-
als included Robert Fain and James Manning, tax felons from Arkansas who
826 American Politics Research
paid lawyer Hugh Rodham, Hillary Clinton’s brother, $400,000 to lobby
their case, and Roger Clinton, who was pardoned for a 1985 narcotics con-
viction. Controversy over executive clemency began in 1795 when George
Washington issued an amnesty proclamation for the Whiskey Rebellion
(Ruckman, 1997). In fact, U.S. presidents have used their power to grant
irrevocable reprieves and pardons throughout history, and its use has long
raised questions about role of political actors in legal absolution for political
reasons. Of course, notable pardons exist on both sides of the partisan aisle,
including George Herbert Walker Bush’s pardoning of Caspar Weinberger,
Robert McFarlane, and others implicated in Iran-Contra and of Armand
Hammer for illicit contributions to Richard Nixon in the 1972 campaign;
Ronald Reagan’s pardon of two FBI officials implicated in break-ins of the
offices of Vietnam War protesters; Jimmy Carter’s pardon of Vietnam War
draft resisters; and certainly Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon.
Is the provision of pardons—the granting of executive clemency—
political? We move beyond anecdotal evidence for the conventional wis-
dom that presidents exercise the pardon as a political tool to test the propo-
sition that pardons are systematically influenced by the policy agendas that
help define our separated powers system. A broad number of recent studies
on the separated powers system show clearly that our national political
institutions, along with the public and the media, work together in a milieu
of complex cue-taking relationships (Cohen, 1997; Edwards & Wood,
1999; Flemming, Wood, & Bohte, 1999; Hill, 1998; Wood & Peake, 1998).
Of course, presidents hold a unique position that allows them to attract
national attention to issues (Andrade & Young, 1996; Canes-Wrone, 2001;
Cohen, 1995, 1997; Edwards & Wood, 1999; Kingdon, 1984; Light, 1999;
Schattschneider, 1960), and that position is often used to pursue the presi-
dential agenda (Bond & Fleisher, 1990; Cohen, 1995, 1997; Light, 1999).
Presidents, though, operate in a system of contingent power, and although
presidential involvement can be a deciding factor in policymaking (Rosati,
1981), they are often attuned to the policy signals of political institutions
such as Congress and private organizational networks such as the media.
Even an institution such as the U.S. Supreme Court, which does not face
similar electoral pressures, is affected by the policy signals of the other
institutions in the system of separated powers (e.g., Epstein & Knight,
1998; Flemming et al., 1999; Flemming & Wood, 1997).
The existing literature focuses largely on the interactions of various
branches of government over shared power in policymaking. Absent from the
literature is a look at the bargaining behavior of these institutions when there
is no specific requirement to share power. Executive clemency has been

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT