Pardon me, but...

Ok. I'm not actually one of the people in need of a pardon. Bush, however, has located seven people who were needing one and gave them out. The subject of Dubya's pardon record, and that of all presidents for that matter, is one that has always fascinated me. I would like to say up front that the presidential power of the pardon and sentence commutation is probably one of the trickiest that every Oval Office occupant has to deal with. There are, doubtless, many people deserving of pardons who never get them, and others who we might feel clearly don't deserve them who do. (One example of the latter was Marc Rich, mentioned in the linked article, who was pardoned by Clinton and was married to a major Democratic donor.) Giving too few pardons can make you look cold and uncaring. Too many pardons, particularly depending on the person and crime in question, and you can appear "soft on crime." It's a tricky balancing act, but the reality of it is that the Executive pardon is often the last hope for those wrongly accused in our courts.

Bush issued seven pardons this week, and while I'm really not familiar with any of these cases yet, the selections certainly look curious to say the least. Here's the short breakdown:

Alan Dale Austin, Mabank, Texas, misapplication of mortgage funds, sentenced October 1987 to two years in prison and $22,000 in restitution.

Charles Russell Cooper, Corpus Christi, Texas, bootlegging, sentenced May 1959 in South Carolina to three years probation.

Joseph Daniel Gavin, East Elmhurst, New York,court-martialed by the Army in 1984 for failure to obey an order and other charges and given a bad conduct discharge.

Raul Marin, El Paso, Texas, failure to appear, sentenced January 1982 to six months in prison, five years probation.

Ernest Rudnet, Tamarac, Florida, conspiracy to file false tax returns, sentenced March 1992 to one year probation.

Gary L. Saltzburg, Clovis, New Mexico, theft of government property, sentenced January 1995 to 18 months probation, community service.

David Lloyd St. Croix, Kenmare, North Dakota, disposing of stolen explosives, sentenced June 1989 to two years probation and a $500 fine.

Joseph William Warner, McLaughlin, South Dakota, arson on an Indian reservation, sentenced November 1995 to eight months in prison, a $5,000 fine, and restitution of $5,560.

Two interesting observations... Bush is from Texas, and of the seven, three (nearly half) are from the Lone Star State. I wonder if anyone is going to do the legwork to see if any of them are from families who are tightly connected to the GOP in Texas?

Five of them deal with cases more than fifteen years old (with one of them being 46 years ago.) These sentences are long since over, and all this action does at this point is wipe them from the record of the convicts. Why these unusual and outdated selections when there are so many more high profile, current cases awaiting decisions?

The next issue this brings up is the total number of pardons which Bush hands out. His track record for "compassionate conservatism" takes a bit of a beating on this one. From the start of his first term until now, Dubya has handed out a grand total of 39 pardons and commutations. How does that stack up against some of his predecessors?

Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, issued 77 pardons during his single term from 1989 to 1993, according to statistics collected by the University of Pittsburgh law school.

President Clinton, by contrast, granted clemency to 456 people during his eight years in office, including 176 on his last day at the White House.

Most presidents since the beginning of the 20th century have granted hundreds if not thousands of pardons and sentence commutations, led by Franklin D. Roosevelt's 3,687 over four terms.

Only two presidents never used their constitutional authority to grant clemency: 19th century chief executives James Garfield and William H. Harrison. Both died before serving a year in office.

Unless things change radically at the end of this term (which is completely possible) good ole' Georgie is coming in nearly dead last in pardons, ahead of only two guys who died before they could get around to giving any out. Compassionate indeed, eh?