On December 12, Biden commuted the sentences of 1,499 people who “have been serving their sentences at home for at least one year under the COVID-era CARES Act. These Americans have been reunited with their families and shown their commitment to rehabilitation by securing employment and advancing their education.”
The Biden administration claimed this was the most people ever granted clemency on a single day, but previous categorical grants of clemency by Biden and former president Jimmy Carter affected more people. It’s the third time Biden has commuted the sentences of people who were moved to home confinement amid the pandemic.
As the New York Times notes, some GOP lawmakers in Congress have pushed for legislation to send people who were released to home confinement during the COVID pandemic back to prison.
There has been backlash to some of the inclusions:
Former Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan
In 2011, Conahan and another judge were convicted for wrongly sending juveniles to for-profit detention centers in exchange for millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks. (4,000 juvenile convictions were later thrown out after the “Kids for Cash” scheme was exposed.) Conahan’s 17-year prison sentence was due to end in 2026, and he had been serving that sentence under home confinement since 2020. Sandy Fonzo, whose son died by suicide after being sent to a juvenile detention center, called Biden’s commutation “deeply painful” in a statement. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro publicly criticized Biden, as well. “I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said. “[Conahan] deserves to be behind bars, not walking as a free man.”
