Tell Congress: Require Pardons
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Point A)
Innocent Americans are in prison, and only an Executive pardon
and reprieve can return them to the freedom they deserve.
The number of people who can directly benefit by the proposed
measure described below is in the hundreds of thousands.
This is necessary, because of the current short-circuiting
of the pardoning processes (as well as the record of
past favoritism involved and political horseplay) at both
Federal and State levels.
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B)
The US Pardon Attorney was fired due to breach of professional
ethics a couple of years ago, and then was replaced by
a dedicated individual (Deborah Leff) who resigned in anger
in early 2016, because her hands were tied by the prosecutorial
culture in the US Justice Department. Pardons at the State level
are equally on hold due to lobbying, and due to
unlawful and underhanded prosecutorial razmatazz.
Deborah Leff's resignation should have been a wake-up
call to the President on this issue.  He's responded by
pulling the covers up and hitting the snooze button.
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C)
Millions of people, civilian and military, work for the Executive
Branch of the United States Government. The President cannot
be realistically expected to keep track of all of them, in all
fairness.
When one of these people in a key position uses a position of  
trust to subvert the law and the Constitution, the permutations 
and combinations of such damaging acts can be severe and
very difficult to repair.
But that's what has been happening during most of the
Obama years. (See congress-censure-ron-rodgers/
on Change Dot Org.) And after nearly eight years in office,
Barack H. Obama should have gotten a better grip on this
core Presidential power, responsibility and duty. He has
the worst all-time record of all Presidents (as averred by
the New York Times, August 1, 2014, page one, and by
ProPublica and by my own research) on the granting
of pardons, when all statistics are factored in (population,
prison population, backlogs in public defender's offices,
frequency of wrongful convictions, and the proliferation
of new photo-op laws which are just plain unconstitutional,
to the point where the Wall Street Journal has stated that
any individual of innocent disposition in the USA today
might easily break the law, without knowing it and without
any malevolent intention whatsoever.)
As Harry Truman said, "The BUCK STOPS HERE."
President Obama must bear the responsibility for his
own malignant failure to grant pardons. During the entire
year 2012, for example, the total number of pardons
granted by President Obama was TWO -
two turkeys. That's inexcusable.
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D)
Let us clarify the legal status on pardons and reprieves.
(and see my petition on Change Dot Org:
congress-clarify-pardons-now/> )
The US Justice Department, in the stringent and arcane
conditions it has set for the granting of pardons (which is
really an unwarranted interference with the powers of the
President) has been just plain wrong. Meanwhile, Americans
and others who languish in prisons and have their lives
otherwise ruined, are cast adrift - and I personally know
someone who has died waiting for justice; while others
become victims of the lethal grip of Government
pardonophobia, even if they haven't been directly
named as defendants or directly victimized by power.
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E)
President Obama is still listening to weak advice on pardons,
advice from both incompetent and self-serving quarters.
The resignation of Deborah Leff shows that this President
has not done his job on the granting of pardons and reprieves.
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He's been crawling, when he should have been running -
to paraphrase Nancy Sinatra. (Her photo is on the petition).
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Lately, the President's been crawling a little faster.
He needs to do more, and he needs to do it now.
But he has been the most insulated President in
history, much the same as Nixon was - on this issue
of the restoration of justice and the prevention and
cure of Constitution-shredding.
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He can't be all that captive to the prison-for-profit lobby
at this point - his political career has reached its apex.
He no longer needs to run for office. It's almost as though
Obama has been blackmailed in a way that prevents him from
moving forward on justice.
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F) J. Edgar Hoover used to bully Presidents when he was
director of the FBI.
Perhaps Obama is holding off on pardons until after the elections -
but that's what we thought in 2012, also.
We can't wait much longer for justice while Government
dilly-dallies and shilly-shallies.
JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED.
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G) Don Siegelman - for example (and there are many similar
examples of innocent people imprisoned in the United States
recently) is not reminiscent of Willie Horton. There could be no
conceivable political blowback from Obama granting a pardon
to the good Governor, even today, months before the election.
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H) Pardoning a beneficent, harmless, innocent individual who
is in prison or on restrictive conditions of probation or unable 
to earn a living due to a record which should be expunged,
all because someone in a position of trust violated the
Constitution, is not the same thing as granting a furlough to a
habitual career criminal with low impulse-control.
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I) Let's stop the prison-for-profit industry, and the so-called
"experts" in the US Justice Department,
from mixing apples and oranges.
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J) The President's job is to preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States, first, foremost, and fully.
That also applies to every Governor in all the States (and
US Territories) who wields powers to grant pardons and
reprieves which are congruent - that is to say, identical
within the State sphere - to the powers of the President
Federally.
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K) By failing to pardon Governor Siegelman, and failing to
pardon myriads of others (including people who have been
released from prison, and are unable to get back on their
feet due to the nature of "the system")
who really have not broken the law - or who have broken
"laws" which are unconstitutional (such as PA 18 CS 2709),
President Obama is, by logical extension,
in serious and perhaps coyly willful breach of his Oath of Office.
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L) The same is true of every Governor of every State
who has a similar egregious, Constitution-busting backlog of
pardons and reprieves which are seriously overdue for action.
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M) When the Constitution has been violated,
and a pardon and reprieve is the way to repair that violation,
failure to grant a pardon is not a take-it-or-leave-it option
dependent on the whim of a President or Governor.
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It is a REQUIREMENT OF THE JOB to grant
pardons and reprieves
when that is the only way to restore the Constitution.
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N) It is a violation of Executive obligation - a breach of omission
which is quite serious, to handle pardons and reprieves in a
diffident, offhanded, cavalier manner, as if the only aspect of
the issue is discretionary or voluntary - and THAT is part of the
prevailing pattern of clemency-failure among Governors and
Presidents today, and since 1981.
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Jimmy Carter was the last President who
took the granting of pardons and reprieves seriously.
(If there's a deadlock at the Democratic Convention this year,
he's the most qualified compromise candidate! He is actually
eligible for nomination! If all else fails, and if this petition is
blocked (as most petitions for justice are these days)
BRING BACK JIMMY CARTER!
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O) It is time NOW to RESTORE JUSTICE IN AMERICA.
The only way we can do that is to put teeth in the Oath of Office,
so that every President and Governor can understand
that it means exactly what it says. It's not window-dressing.
It's not to be ignored on the way to the next photo op.
IT'S THE LAW, and the HIGHEST LAW for all elected
officials in the United States of America.
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P) Let us call on Congress to pass legislation REQUIRING the
President and the Governors of all fifty States (as well as all
self-governing Territories) to grant pardons upon recognizance
of any petition invoking the Constitution, and upon
application by any petitioner who reasonably invokes the
Constitution; in EVERY CASE wherein failure to grant a
pardon and reprieve has overturned, or would necessarily
overturn, the Constitution of the United States; and providing 
for an automatic remedy of impeachment proceedings against
the President or any Governor, for any legislatively recognized
Constitutional negligence or other lawfully egregious failure to
grant pardons and reprieves - AND to declare that Article Four,
Section Nine of the state constitution of Pennsylvania is
null and void on its face past the first 24 words. This
Constitutional nullity, which was proposed initially as an
anti-favoritism measure, but which has turned out to be a
convenient ruse for Governors to duck responsibility,
is nothing more than a Rube Goldberg legalism, a series
of clauses which create contradictions overturning
both Article Four, Section Four and Article Six (inter alia)
of the Constitution of the United States.
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Q) Due to the fact that any such superfluous State
constitutional clauses effectively nullify Article Six of
the Constitution of the United States by overturning
the powers of the Governor of Pennsylvania or any other
State similarly affected to "grant Reprieves and pardons"
in a manner congruent with Article Two, Section Two of the
Constitution of the United States of America in conjunction  
with "republican Form" guarantees as they imperatively apply 
to every State government in the United States; and because
people in State governments have responded to pleas to 
re-establish justice as if they have bubble-gum in their ears
(and as if it's more urgent to take care of matters of
injustice from the history books rather than our own time)
we need Federal legislation to ENFORCE the fact that
so many of these State actions, laws and constitutional
clauses have been, will NO LONGER BE PERMITTED
TO BE USED as a ruse by which to nullify the
Constitution of the United States.
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S) The same Congressional legislation should also apply to 
all other States whose constitutions have similar arcane
restrictions on Executive power to grant reprieves and pardons -
or, as Article Six states so eloquently, "any other Thing"
in the laws or constitution of any State which is incongruent
with and flies in the face of the Constitution of the United
States, and Supreme Court decisions and opinions on any
particular subject which have stood the test of time, is a
"Thing" which is NULL AND VOID ON ITS FACE.
So the Constitution describes everything in Article Four,
Section Nine of the Pennsylvania constitution except
for the first 24 words (which are Constitutionally congruent)
as a "Thing", (yes, the word is capitalized in the draft)
- and if the Founding Fathers who drafted this basic Law
of the United States were to rise from their graves, they
might well say, "Leave 'THING' to play its bit part on The
Addams Family, and OUT of State laws and constitutions."
No State should be permitted to wiggle out from under the
Constitution of the United States.  We fought a war over
that issue.  We can't afford another one. The Constitution
is clear. The Constitution is the law. And the Constitution
of the United States of America must be preserved, 
protected and defended against all power-mad smart-alecks.
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T) Remember that many Americans - as well as others
who live under the American flag - have been victimized by
Government, although they have not even been accused 
of a crime.  These people deserve Executive reprieves on
their behalf too.  It is time that the Executive functions of
Government stop endlessly favoring bureaucratic bungling
and be TOLD to get down to business - or hit the road.
When all it would take would be the wave of a pen to
stop Government ruination of the lives of good people
in the United States, it's time to tell the President and
all Governors of each State to pick it up and get to work.
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U) Share this petition. Remember the innocent Americans in prison
due to wrongful convictions, or the people who have been sentenced
in violation of the Constitution. Do this for them - and remember -
if you don't act now to help those in trouble unjustly,
you could be next. When they come for you,
will there be anyone left to help you?
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I HOPE SO. And this petition may be the best way to guarantee it.
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Very truly yours,
Scott Davis
Chairman
Committee of 37 Peace Initiative
PO Box 877
Edgmont, PA 19028-0877
USA