Late-Term Pardons: Are We There Yet?

In the aftermath of the Clinton administration, former U.S. Pardon Attorney Margaret Colgate Love appeared before a House Judiciary subcommittee and said:

The [clemency] system worked efficiently [between] 1900 and 1980. [Pardon]warrants were signed by the President four or five times a year, and there was no particular increase in grants at the end of an administration.

Love had expressed a similar view just two weeks earlier on the McNeil Lehrer News Hour:

I think it is interesting that Chris [Schroeder] has an idea that pardons have come at the end of the term – because in fact, this is the first time that I’m aware of that a huge number of pardons was done at the very end of the term. Usually Presidents pardon very evenly across their term. They pardon evenly across the year.

While such testimony made great fuel for Clinton's critics (in and outside of Congress) and had great play in media on the prowl for still yet another sensational angle on pardons, it was hardly accurate. Clinton set no records for presidential pardons, or pardons granted in the fourth year of a term. Nor did he set a record for pardons granted in a single day. The president right before Clinton - George H. W. Bush - granted most of his pardons in the fourth year of the term. Love knew that. She was President Bush's pardon attorney!

Ronald Reagan set his highest mark in the fourth year (second term), as did Gerald Ford, Dwight Eisenhower (both terms) and most presidents before them, going back to - and starting with - George Washington.

Even when the clemency activity of an administration has not peaked in the fourth year of the term, presidents like Carter, Truman, Coolidge, Hoover, Grant, Wilson, Hayes and Taft dumped noticeable clumps of pardons in their final days in office. In the world of fact, "particular increases at end of an administration" are the rule, exactly what we all should expect to see.

That all being said, maybe, just maybe, this time around, Justice Department officials and other pardon "experts" can get it right. If George W. Bush sets a personal record for late-term pardons, they can all say, "Like most presidents before him, Bush has followed a great American tradition, implemented by the Father of Our Country, George Washington." If Bush remains somewhat constrained in his use of the power, they can say. "Unlike most presidents before him, Bush did not throw caution in the wind, hand out last-minute pardons and bring into the question the integrity of his office and our system of justice."

Now, make it interesting. Ponder the reasons why we are not really likely to ever read anything of the kind!