Two Southland Men's Drug Sentences Commuted by Pres. Obama

By MARC TORRENCE (Patch National Staff) and ALEXANDER NGUYEN (Patch Staff)

LOS ANGELES, CA -- Two Southland men will get a second chance at freedom Thursday as President Obama announced he will commute the sentences of 58 drug offenders.

The men will be released on Sept. 2 of this year. Many of 58 were serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes -- crimes that would have netted them less prison time under the today's sentencing guidelines.

Obama has made criminal justice reform a focal point of his presidency, including shortening prison sentences for nonviolent criminals, and Thursday's action brings additional action to his words.

"It just doesn’t make sense to require a nonviolent drug offender to serve 20 years, or in some cases, life, in prison," the president wrote in a post on Medium. "An excessive punishment like that doesn’t fit the crime. It’s not serving taxpayers, and it’s not making us safer."

He cut the sentences of 61 drug offenders short in March.

Many of the people that Obama commuted Thursday will be released on Sept. 2 of this year, according to the White House. The rest will be released over the course of the next two years.

Among the people people whose sentences were commuted are Jerome Clarence Sumral of Los Angeles and Fulton Leroy Washington of Compton.

Sumral was convicited of possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine and sentenced to 20 years in June 2005.

Washington was convicted of conspiracy to manufacture phencyclidine, possession of piperidinocyclohexane-carbonitrile with intent to manufacture PCP and attempt to manufacture PCP. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

• You can see the full list of offenders who will be released here.

Thursday's announcement brings Obama's commutation count up to 306 for his presidency, more than the last six presidents combined, Obama touted in his announcement.

But that statistic is a little misleading.

Previous presidents have issued far more pardons than commutations, unlike Obama, according to data from the U.S. Justice Department.

George W. Bush, for example, issued 11 commutations and 189 pardons. Bill Clinton issued 396 pardons and 61 commutations.

A pardon essentially wipes clean the slate of a convicted criminal. A commutation only lessens the punishment.

Obama's 376 combined pardons and commutations put him ahead of just two of the five previous presidents, including George H.W. Bush who served only one term.

Obama has been been particularly stingy on pardons during his presidency. His 70 since he took office is the lowest of any president since James Garfield, who died six months into his term, according to Yahoo News.

“He’s been unusually stingy — he’s a clemency Grinch,” Douglas Berman, an Ohio State law professor, told Yahoo.

Obama said in an interview with the Huffington Post that the applications for pardon he is receiving are for "mostly small-time crimes from very long ago" and don't address "broader issues that we face" like nonviolent offenders.

The White House has also put some of the blame on the Justice Department's delay in processing applications.

The Justice Departmen's pardon attorney stepped down in January, reportedly because of her frustration at a lack of resources to process those applications.

Obama currently has 958 petitions for pardon and 9,115 petitions for commutation pending, according to Justice Department data.

Image via the White House