FAMM Panel: OPA is Broken, Must be Investigated

Today at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, FAMM held a panel and called on Congress to investigate the Office of the Pardon Attorney (OPA), which reviews commutation and pardon applications from federal prisoners and provides the president with advice on whether they should be granted or denied.

Virtually all of that advice since 2001 has been this:  deny, deny, deny.  Presidents Bush and Obama trusted and followed OPA's advice, denying over 11,300 commutation requests.

It was an excellent panel.  Linda Aaron, the mother of federal lifer Clarence Aaron, shared how the OPA's misconduct in handling her son's commutation case devastated her and her family.  Former federal prisoner Derrick Curry described how getting a commutation from President Bill Clinton felt like hitting the Powerball, while Debi Campbell, a federal prisoner who had 3 commutation requests denied, described her frustration at never feeling like OPA took her applications seriously.  Former OPA staff attorney Sam Morison described how OPA is completely captive to a prosecutorial, just-say-no mindset, and reporter Dafna Linzer said she just couldn't believe that 7,000 denied commutation requests in the last four years actually received a meaningful, thorough review.

In short, the clemency review system is broken. Taxpayers pay for it, and Congress must investigate the OPA to make it accountable to the public and the president.

Read FAMM's complete coverage of the panel on our Twitter feed, check out our press release summarizing what the panelists said, don't miss this article about Linda Aaron's mission to bring Clarence home, and read Julie's letter in The Washington Post in response to Linzer's cracker-jack reporting on the Aaron debacle.