Is a governor's power to pardon criminals a valuable tool to correct unjust sentences or does it undermine the rule of law by allowing politicians to forgive offenses as personal favors?
End-of-term clemency is a centuries-old, often vilified tradition.
Clemency grants at the end of a governor's or president's term have become a routine departure ritual, gaining attention only when they offend the public's idea of fairness, as did President Clinton's 2001 intervention to forgive fugitive financier Marc Rich and President Ford's pardon of his predecessor, Richard M. Nixon.
Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's commutation of the 16-year sentence for Estaban Nuñez, the son of political ally and former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, spurred outcries of cronyism and threats to challenge the reduced penalty as an assault on justice.
But the authority of a state or federal executive to overrule a court's judgment is immutable, leaving the citizenry without recourse beyond the right to denounce it as an abuse of power.
