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1 1 (April 25, 2025)

handle is hein.crs/exctvcmy0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional SRes'earch Service Executive Clemency and Judicial Power: Legal Overview and Recent Caselaw April 25, 2025 On the first day of his second term in office, President Donald Trump granted a full, complete and unconditional pardon to almost all individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. Fourteen named individuals convicted of such offenses instead received commutations of their sentences to time served. President Trump stated that some individuals received commutations rather than pardons pending further research. As of this writing, it appears that one of the fourteen individuals whose sentence was commuted has since received a pardon. Twelve of the thirteen remaining individuals whose sentences were commuted had been sentenced to terms of imprisonment and subsequent terms of supervised release. The impact of the commutations on some of these individuals' sentences, including whether and how their terms of supervised release should be implemented and served, generated dialogue between the Department of Justice and the sentencing court that illustrates the sometimes-complicated relationship between executive clemency, judicial power, and criminal punishment. This relationship may be of interest to Congress as it considers legislation that would seek to regulate the exercise of executive clemency. This Legal Sidebar examines the President's authority to grant clemency and the difference between pardons and commutations. It then analyzes court decisions that turn in part on this difference, including a 2025 case involving the effect of a presidential commutation on supervised release conditions. The Sidebar concludes with considerations for Congress and other constitutional issues that may arise in legislation regarding executive clemency. Background: Clemency The Constitution confers on the President the Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. Rooted in early English law, this authority is recognized by the Supreme Court as plenary and a broad power to forgive a convicted person in part or entirely, to reduce a penalty in terms of a specified number of years, or to alter it. Presidential clemency is reserved for federal criminal offenses, not state crimes or civil claims. Thus, a President's exercise of clemency can take several forms, including an unconditional pardon or a commutation that lessens the severity or length of a convicted individual's punishment. As one court put Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB11294 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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