The Quality of Mercy

Here's another post on issues affecting Maryland prisons: This WaPo piece on Bob Ehrlich's penchant for granting clemency to prisoners and ex-cons is rather illuminating. Bucking the trends of most governors, Democratic and Republican, Ehrlich has granted 190 pardons and commutations over the past four years. Compare this to past governors: Parris Glendening only issued 38 over two terms and William Donald Schaefer issued 91 over the same amount of time.

Nationwide, the trend is not much better. According to a report by Margaret Colgate Love, who is quoted in the Post article, only a dozen other states offer pardons to the convicted as frequently as Maryland has under Ehrlich, and most of them have some form of independent board that recommends pardons, thus insulating governors from Lee Atwater-style attacks on them for being "soft on crime." Even so, the infamous Willie Horton ads have cast a long shadow over most politicians: In 1994, Pennsylvania's Lt. Gov. Mark Singel only pardoned eight people in as many years in his capacity as chief of the Board of Pardons, but he lost the race for Governor to future DHS secretary Tom Ridge after one of them was arrested for kidnapping, rape, and robbery a month before the election.

Indeed, the whole fear shared by many people that pardoned convicts or prisoners with commuted sentences will return to a life of crime obscures a more wide-ranging concern; namely, reintegrating people in civil society once they have served their term. Currently, most states place a number of barriers in front of ex-felons with respect to employment and licensing: Some are reasonable, such as restrictions on owning a firearm, but others, like prohibitions on the right to vote, are incredibly unjust. (I don't think I need to bring up Florida in 2000, do I?) Moreover, pardons are often the only means of achieving full reintegration, and, given the political pressures facing governors mentioned above, it means ex-felons trying to reenter normal life may not achieve that goal.

(Edited for clarity.)

UPDATE: Mike Raia cautions against giving Ehrlich more credit than is due on this matter, which I second.

UPDATE 2: The Post editorial board applauds Bob Ehrlich's prolific use of the pardon power.

Tags: Maryland, prisons, pardon, Bob Ehrlich, clemency