On January 17, three days before the end of his term as United States president, Joe Biden announced he was commuting the sentences of almost 2,500 people who had been convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. In response, some people have suggested that included in these commutations were commutations for murder convictions. This suggestion is deceptive.
As reported on January 17 by Bill Weissert at the Associated Press, Biden commented that he took the action because he was seeking to undo “disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences” that the individuals “would receive today under current law, policy, and practice.” Specifically, Biden noted reductions that have been made in US law in sentences for crimes involving crack to make them closer to the sentences for crimes involving cocaine and “outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes.” Thus, Biden’s action was not a radical rejection of the drug war. Instead, it was merely an extending of the benefit of later drug war rollbacks to people who had been convicted earlier.
In providing the commutations, Biden can be seen as attempting to make some amends for his own responsibility for ratcheting up the drug war during his political career. The commutations are far short of ending the US government’s drug war that has created so much harm in America and abroad, but they at least are a step in the right direction.
While the commutations are large in number — maybe record-breaking in that regard, their nature is not the sort that would be expected to stir up in the public much extreme excitement, positive or negative. But, after the announcement of the commutations, some people started bemoaning that Biden via the commutations was cutting short some convicts’ murder sentences. They further argued that Biden in doing so was either being reckless or deceptive. However, the truth is that it is these accusations against Biden that are reckless or deceptive.
“Biden clemency for ‘non-violent’ inmates includes Connecticut child killer,” blared a Fox News article headline last week. Other media entities presented similarly shocking headlines.
The first paragraph of the Fox News article by Michael Ruiz backs up the suggestion of the article title and provides details that make the shock even greater. The paragraph reads, “A 48-year-old Connecticut drug kingpin who killed a mother and her 8-year-old son so she wouldn’t testify against his brother has received a commutation as part of former President Joe Biden’s clemency for nearly 2,500 federal inmates he described as ‘non-violent.’”
But, read carefully through the article and you can parse that the reality is far different from what the title and first paragraph indicate. Yes, Adrian Peeler is among the people Biden pardoned. As far as a murder conviction goes, Peeler, the article relates, “beat the top charge of murder and served 25 years in state prison for conspiracy to commit murder.” So, the argument central to the article is already weakened as it turns out Peeler was not convicted of murder after all. But, there is more. The article goes on to mention that Peeler, when granted clemency by Biden, had already completed his incarceration on the state law conviction for conspiracy to commit murder and was serving time in US prison for federal cocaine trafficking charges regarding which he had agreed to a plea deal. Got that? The reality is that Biden just cut short the drug sentence of Peeler. The commutation had nothing at all to do with murder. Now, that myth-dispelling information should have been in the headline and first sentence of the article, assuming the purpose of the article was to provide people with information and not to try to manipulate them into believing a tall tale.
Next, the article discussed two more people to whom Biden provided commutations: Ferrone Claiborne and Terence Richardson. But, rather than being convicted of murder, they were acquitted of that charge. “Prosecutors failed to convince the jury they were guilty of murder but secured convictions on drug trafficking charges,” the article details. Again, as with Peeler, the commutations for these two men just cut short a drug trafficking sentence. The commutations had nothing to do with murder despite the article’s clever writing suggesting they did.
Another manipulation in the article is the claim that Biden declared the commutations were for nonviolent individuals. The truth is that Biden said in his written statement regarding the commutations that the commutations were for “nearly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses.” That is something very different from what was stated in the Fox News article. It is quite a manipulation to change what the adjective “nonviolent” describes. This “gotcha” is all fantasy. Some people who are convicted of nonviolent crimes have also taken violent actions. That, however, is beside the point. They can be punished for violent crimes, as was Peeler, after a court conviction. But, it is entirely improper and unjust to demand that they continue being incarcerated beyond their resulting sentences, no matter how heinous the details of the particular crime.
In the Fox News article is the truth regarding Biden’s commutations for all three men. Yet, that truth is buried in the article and downplayed in the rhetoric by which it is conveyed, as well as contradicted by the primary message the article and its headline conveys.
Here we have Biden being deceptively attacked for taking an action favorable to smaller government and greater respect for individual rights. If we want politicians to take liberty-advancing actions — especially politicians like Biden for whom such an action is a departure from their norm, it is important challenge the deceptive attacks that are hurled at them in response.
