Biden: Pardons and Commuted Sentences

 

3.  A Connecticut drug kingpin convicted in the deaths of an 8-year-old boy and his mother was granted clemency by former President Joe Biden — in a stunning 11th-hour move slammed by fellow Democrats.  Adrian Peeler, 48, of Bridgeport, served 25 years in state prison on conspiracy charges in the deaths of Karen Clarke and her 8-year-old son, Leroy “BJ” Brown, in January 1999, CT Mirror reported.  The two had been slated to testify a month later against Peeler’s brother, fellow drug gang leader Russell Peeler, who was on trial for killing Clarke’s boyfriend and rival dealer Rudolf Snead, the Hartford Courant said.

But there was reportedly only one witness to the killings, and Peeler beat the murder and capital felony raps — but was convicted on the lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder.  Peeler served his 25 years on the conspiracy conviction, and was transferred to the federal prison system to serve out his 35-year sentence for dealing cocaine, which ran concurrently.  On Friday, one of his final days in office, Biden commuted Peeler’s drug sentence, ordering him free on July 16, according to The Courant.

Biden commuted a number of long drug sentences incurred years ago.  The justification was that law has changed and if convicted of the same crime now, the sentence would be shorter.   Since Peeler had already served his sentence for the murder, he remained in prison due to his drug sentence.  

2.  And Biden gave clemency to Rita Crundwell, a corrupt local official in Illinois who carried out the largest municipal fraud scheme in US history.

Also on the list: Meera Sachdeva, a Mississippi doctor who committed large-scale Medicare fraud, in part by shortchanging cancer patients by giving them diluted drugs.  She also reused needles, which seems to have led to an HIV infection in at least one patient. 

1.  President Joe Biden has commuted the sentence of Michael Conahan, the former Pennsylvania judge convicted in the notorious “Kids for Cash” scandal.  Conahan, now 72, was among nearly 1,500 individuals granted sentence commutations on Thursday, marking the largest number of such actions in a single day in U.S. history.  Conahan, a former Luzerne County judge, pleaded guilty in 2010 to racketeering conspiracy charges for his role in accepting $2.1 million in kickbacks in exchange for sending juveniles to for-profit detention centers.  The scandal also implicated his co-defendant, former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, and shocked the nation for its exploitation of vulnerable youth.

The “Kids for Cash” case revolved around Conahan and Ciavarella’s involvement in steering juvenile offenders to two privately operated detention facilities.  The judges received financial compensation for their decisions, which often involved harsh sentences for minor infractions. Many of the juveniles affected came from disadvantaged backgrounds and were given disproportionate sentences for relatively minor offenses, such as schoolyard fights or petty theft.