'Last-Minute' Pardon Scandals: Fact and Fiction

Abstract

In the aftermath of President Clinton’s “last-minute” pardons, a variety of “experts” appeared before congressional subcommittees in an attempt to place the resulting “scandal” in a proper historical and legal context. Although no data were presented to support the notion, testimony suggested previous presidents had generally exercised the pardoning power “evenly” across terms, “four or five times” a year, without any “particular” increases in activity near the end of administrations. At the time of the hearings, all of the available empirical research on the topic (published and unpublished) and data reported by the Department of Justice suggested otherwise. The empirical research, however, largely focused on administrations from 1789 to 1932. This paper explores “last-minute” pardons with a new, original data set on the exercise of clemency from 1932 to 2001 initially gathered by researchers at the University of Chicago. The analysis clearly demonstrates members of a congressional subcommittee were wildly misinformed with respect to the use of clemency in previous administrations. The author then explores some possible explanations for the poor quality of congressional testimony, including: governmental policies, partisan transition in the White House and the vested interests of those participating in such hearings.

Keywords: president, pardons, pardon power, executive clemency, Clinton, clemency powers, commutation of sentence

JEL Classification: K10, K14