16 - Disappearing Pardons

Summary

Historian James Whitman notes that, historically, governors used pardons to maintain low prison populations. He relates the report of an English observer in 1835 that prisoners in New York “felt unduly wronged” if they did not receive a pardon after serving half of their sentences, a belief reinforced by the existence of “semiannual clemency sessions which resulted in the release of forty to fifty convicts simultaneously.”¹ One explanation for the demise of executive clemency was its replacement with more formal types of executive lenience, such as parole.² As noted inand , however, American jurisdictions would later severely restrict parole. And when that happened, a traditional safeguard against bloated prison populations – the pardon power – did not reemerge.