President Obama on Wednesday shortened the sentences of another 61 drug offenders, bringing his total commutation tally to 248, which is more than the previous six presidents combined.
But Obama's numbers look less impressive when considered proportionally. Thanks to a recent spike in commutation requests, Obama lags behind former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and even Richard Nixon if commutations are counted as a proportion of clemency petitions. Carter granted 2.8 percent of commutation requests, Ford 4 percent, and Nixon 6.7 percent. To date, Obama has assented to just 1.3 percent of some 20,000 commutation requests submitted during his tenure.
"At his current pace," The New York Times remarks, "Mr. Obama will free a small fraction of those prisoners by the time his term ends next year," while thousands of petitions will go unaddressed. For its part, the Justice Department has said it does not have the resources to process the applications more quickly.
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