When wielded responsibly, the presidential power to pardon and commute sentences is essential to right injustices. Controversy rightly arose after President Joe Biden, in his last minutes in office, pardoned family members. Then new President Donald Trump pardoned more than 1,000 defendants from the Jan. 6 riot four years ago.
But largely unnoticed amid the events of the transition of power were two unquestionably commendable actions by each man. Joe Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 2,500 nonviolent drug offenders. That was a major reversal from his record as one of the top drug warriors during his long career in the U.S. Senate. In 1993 he boasted how “every major crime bill since 1976 that’s come out of this Congress” included his name.
Reforms since then reduced penalties as Americans came to understand that draconian punishments went too far. Still, many have remained behind bars with stiffer than justified penalties for nonviolent drug offenses. Said Biden Monday in a statement, “This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities, and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars.”
On his second day in office, President Trump pardoned Ross William Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road internet marketplace. As described by Reason Magazine’s Brian Doherty, “Silk Road’s innovative mail order using bitcoin, combined with user reviews of sellers, imposed some real market discipline on dealers, kept buyers from the occasional dangers of physically obtaining drugs, and allowed people not violating others’ lives and property to buy and sell drugs with less (but not zero) legal risk.”
Ulbricht was convicted of facilitating drug sales and money laundering on the “dark web.” In 2015, he was given two life sentences in prison. Jacob Sullum noted in Reason magazine the government “averred” Ulbricht allegedly contracted for murders. But the actual charges “did not include attempted murder for hire, and no such charge was ever presented to the jury, let alone proven in court.” But many have speculated such talk may have contributed to Ulbricht’s harsh sentence.
Sullum noted the calls for a pardon came from cross-ideological sections of the political spectrum, including left-wing opponents of the “war on drugs,” the American Conservative Union, libertarians at Reason and the Cato Institute, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, and Rep. Thomas Massie, also of Kentucky.
Trump explained on his TruthSocial platform he called Ulbricht’s mother “to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross.”
Unfortunately, also on Inauguration Day Trump started a new war on drugs by declaring Mexican drug cartels terrorist organizations. No one denies the awfulness of the cartels, but how many more decades of evidence do we need that the war on drugs is a fool’s errand? What eliminated the bootleggers wasn’t more prohibition, but legalization, after all.
The fight to legalize transactions between consenting adults continues. But at least there remains bipartisan recognition that drug war criminal penalties are often unjust.