For once President Barack Obama seemed to be facing the easiest of decisions.
Offered a chance to right a grievous historical wrong and to honour an
African-American hero, he needed only to issue a presidential pardon that
even his fiercest political rivals agreed was long overdue.
Yet there has so far been no pardon for Jack Johnson, the first black
heavyweight boxing world champion, who was jailed for immoral behaviour 100
years ago after he flaunted his relationships with white women.
Not only has there been no happy ending to a disgraceful episode in American
racial relations, but Obama’s grim caution in handling the Johnson case has
raised questions about the willingness of the president and his advisers to
risk controversy over inflammatory issues of race, crime and punishment.
Senator John McCain, Obama’s Republican rival in last year’s election,
launched a campaign last April to secure a posthumous pardon for Johnson,
who held the world title for seven years and thrilled his fellow
African-Americans by trouncing James Jeffries, the so-called “Great White
Hope” who declared that he had taken on the fight “for the sole purpose of
proving that a white man is better than a negro”.
McCain said last April he was sure that the president would be “more than
eager” to erase the boxer’s 1913 conviction under the anti-prostitution Mann
Act, which forbade the transporting of women across state borders for
immoral purposes. The case was widely seen as a racist travesty aimed at
silencing an uppity black man.
“I think the last person I have to convince [of the need for a pardon] is
probably President Obama,” added McCain.
Yet the senator revealed earlier this month that the White House never replied
to his initial request for a pardon. In a second letter, sent last weekend,
McCain again urged Obama to “right this wrong and erase an act of racism
that sent an American citizen to prison”.
The White House declined to comment. A case that once seemed easy has instead
become a dilemma, as Obama weighs the legal and political consequences of a
presidential pardoning power that used to be widely exercised but fell into
disrepute under Bill Clinton and George W Bush.
Professor Douglas Berman, a constitutional expert at Ohio State University,
noted last week that only three of 38 presidents between Thomas Jefferson
and Ronald Reagan failed to grant pardons during their first 100 days in
office. John F Kennedy started slowly but in only 34 months in office
pardoned 472 people and commuted 100 prison sentences.
Obama is now in his 10th month as president and has not granted a single
clemency or commutation of sentence. “It is a sad and telling commentary on
the emptiness of the rhetoric of hope and change [that] President Obama was
not able to find even a single case in the massive federal criminal justice
system meriting some kind of clemency relief during his first 100 days in
office,” said Berman. “I’m very disappointed.”
The omission may partly be due to a bureaucratic breakdown in the Justice
Department, which is responsible for recommending presidential action in
clemency cases. Legal scholars also suspect that Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief
of staff, is implacably imposed to any initiative that might be criticised
as softness on crime.
“Pardoning used to be considered a part of the routine housekeeping business
of the presidency and hundreds of grants were made every year, without
fanfare, to ordinary people,” said Margaret Colgate Love, a lawyer
specialising in clemency requests.
“But the system broke down in the Clinton administration and the Justice
Department’s pardon office has become a place where petitions for
presidential mercy go to die.”
The racial element further complicates the political calculation. Obama has
attempted to steer clear of racial controversy and even a case as compelling
as Johnson’s has a potential downside. If Obama focuses on black injustice,
will white voters recoil? And is a 100year-old case really the best place to
start when the Justice Department is considering more than 1,300 petitions
submitted to the pardon office so far this year ?
Beginning with Johnson, who died in 1946, “would send the message that pardons
are only for dead people”, said Professor Daniel Kobil, a constitutional
expert at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.
Thanks largely to Clinton and Bush, clemencies and commutations are most
commonly associated with scandal-stained presidential departures from the
White House. Yet Obama hinted often during his election campaign that he
intended to make an early start on redressing historical grievances that
have tainted America’s system of justice.
Both Obama and Joe Biden, his vice-president, drew attention during the
election campaign to startling disparities in the sentences imposed on
dealers in crack and powder cocaine. Because crack cocaine — mostly used by
poor blacks — used to be regarded as more of a threat than the powdered
variety — favoured by affluent whites — prison sentences for crack dealers
were far stiffer.
The main problem for Obama may not be where to start with clemency but where
to stop. “How to deal with all of the past cases [of sentencingrelated
unfairness] is going to be a giant headache,” said Berman. “Then people will
start asking why was this person pardoned and not that person. In the end,
doing nothing may get the least criticism.”
Obama’s problem is that doing nothing is not what he promised as he stormed
across America last year.
“It could really be quite valuable for the chief executive to send a message,
in George Bush’s words, that America is the land of the second chance,” said
Berman. The use of pardons and commutations could be a “policy-spotlighting
tool” to encourage necessary judicial reforms.
Instead, Obama appears to be steering clear of the issue. “That suggests a
kind of political cowardice,” said Berman. “People were motivated by his
promises. He can set the tone, be a symbolic leader. This may be a missed
opportunity.”
Big Apple's Big Spender
Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, emerged yesterday as the biggest
personal spender in the history of US election campaigns.
The media billionaire has so far spent $85m (£52m) of his own money on his bid
for re-election on November 3 and is expected to burn through at least
another $30m.
His Democratic rival, William Thompson, who has spent $6m, denounced the
mayor’s spending as “obscene”
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