拜登为 1,500 名美国人减刑，创单日减刑纪录
【中美创新时报2024 年 12 月 12 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）拜登总统周四表示，他将在任期最后几周内全面赦免近 1,500 人的刑期，并赦免 39 名被判犯有非暴力罪行的人。白宫表示，这是美国总统单日减刑次数最多的一次。《纽约时报》记者Zolan Kanno-Youngs对此作了下述报道。
大多数获得赦免的人在疫情期间被关押在家中。一些共和党人试图推动立法，迫使这些人重返监狱。
拜登总统周四表示，他将在任期最后几周内全面赦免近 1,500 人的刑期，并赦免 39 名被判犯有非暴力罪行的人。白宫表示，这是美国总统单日减刑次数最多的一次。
减刑适用于在冠状病毒大流行期间从监狱释放并被关押在家中的人。赦免对象是被判犯有非暴力罪行（包括毒品犯罪）的人。
“美国建立在可能性和第二次机会的承诺之上，”拜登在一份声明中说。他说，赦免代表了他“帮助家庭团聚、加强社区和让个人重新融入社会”的承诺。
赦免可以取消定罪，而减刑可以保留有罪判决，但会减轻部分或全部惩罚。
拜登的行动是美国现代史上最大的赦免之一。吉米·卡特总统上任第一天就发布了一项影响更多人的赦免令，赦免对象是逃避越南战争征兵的男子。但这就是所谓的绝对赦免；拜登的减刑是针对个案的。
两周前，拜登宣布赦免其子亨特，亨特因持有枪支和逃税罪被定罪。这一决定遭到共和党和民主党的严厉批评，因为总统长期以来一直排除对其儿子的赦免。
拜登在将权力移交给当选总统唐纳德·特朗普之前，面临着越来越大的压力，要求他使用赦免权。作为参议员，拜登曾支持 1994 年的一项犯罪法案，许多专家认为该法案助长了大规模监禁。此后，他对自己支持该法案表示后悔，并在 2020 年的竞选期间承诺解决由此导致的长期毒品刑期问题。
一些国会民主党人和其他人士也呼吁拜登将所有 40 名死囚的刑期减为终身监禁。特朗普支持死刑，并在他第一任期内暂停近 20 年后重启了联邦处决。
疫情期间，新冠疫情在监狱和监狱中迅速蔓延，而那些被转移到家中监禁的人的命运最近几周尤其引起活动人士的关注。一些共和党人将于下个月控制国会，他们试图推动立法，迫使他们重返监狱。
拜登在周四的声明中表示，如果根据现行法律对他们进行指控，其中许多人将获得较低的刑期。据白宫称，他们至少已经在家中服刑一年。
“这些在新冠疫情期间被关押在家中的减刑获得者已成功融入家庭和社区，并表明他们值得获得第二次机会，”他说。
获得减刑的囚犯的姓名尚未公布。
温迪·赫克特曼 (Wendy Hechtman) 是疫情期间被转移到家中监禁的囚犯之一，周四早上，她在布法罗醒来时，丈夫提醒她拜登的声明。她仍在服刑，罪名是密谋散发芬太尼，被判处 15 年徒刑，她一直担心自己明年无法参加女儿在魁北克举行的婚礼。周四之前，她计划参加婚礼。
周四上午，赫克特曼女士急切地想知道自己是否是拜登减刑的 1,500 人之一。
“几个月来，我一直有一种直觉，我能够去，如果我的名字在名单上？今年夏天，我将在女儿的婚礼上跳舞，”赫克特曼女士在接受采访时说。“我等不及了。”
拜登表示，他将在未来几周采取更多措施，并继续审查赦免请愿书。知情人士说，他的工作人员一直在争论他是否应该对特朗普的一些敌人发布全面赦免，以保护他们免受他所威胁的“报复”。
白宫官员不相信这些潜在的赦免对象实际上犯了罪，但他们越来越担心，特朗普对司法部高级职位的选择表明，他将履行他一再发誓要报复的誓言。这个想法是先发制人地将行政赦免扩大到一批现任和前任政府官员，从而有效地阻止下任总统承诺的报复行动。
到目前为止，拜登在使用总统赦免法案方面相对受到限制。根据赦免律师的统计，他已经发布了 26 项个人赦免和 135 项减刑。司法部下属的赦免律师办公室在拜登任期内收到了近 12,000 份赦免请求。
总统对因简单使用和持有大麻而被定罪的人发布了绝对赦免令，尽管在他做出决定时，这些人都没有入狱。他还清除了因违反军队以前的反同性恋行为法而被定罪的前军人的记录。
题图：拜登总统身着深蓝色西装，伸出双手。白宫表示，减刑代表了拜登总统“帮助家庭团聚、加强社区和让个人重新融入社会”的承诺。图片来源：Eric Lee/纽约时报
附原英文报道：
Biden Commutes the Sentences of 1,500 Americans, a Record for One Day
Most of those being granted clemency had been placed in home confinement during the pandemic. Some Republicans have tried to push legislation that would have forced those people to return to prison.
President Biden in a dark blue suit with his hand held out.
The White House said that the commutations represented President Biden’s commitment to “help reunite families, strengthen communities and reintegrate individuals back into society.”Credit…Eric Lee/The New York Times
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs
Dec. 12, 2024
President Biden said on Thursday that he is commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoning 39 people convicted of nonviolent crimes in a sweeping act of clemency during his final weeks in office. The White House said it was the largest number of commutations by an American president in a single day.
The commutations affect those who had been released from prison and placed in home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic. The pardons are for people convicted of nonviolent crimes, including drug offenses.
“America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. He said the clemency represented his commitment to “help reunite families, strengthen communities and reintegrate individuals back into society.”
A pardon wipes out a conviction, while a commutation leaves the guilty verdict intact but reduces some or all of the punishment.
Mr. Biden’s action was one of the biggest grants of clemency in modern American history. President Jimmy Carter, on his first day in office, issued a pardon that affected more people, for men who evaded the Vietnam War draft. But that was what is known as a categorical pardon; Mr. Biden’s commutations are for individual cases.
The announcement came two weeks after Mr. Biden issued a pardon for his son Hunter, who had been convicted of gun possession and pleaded guilty to income tax evasion. That decision was harshly criticized by both Republicans and Democrats because the president had long ruled out clemency for his son.
Mr. Biden has come under increasing pressure to use his clemency powers before he hands over power to President-elect Donald J. Trump. As a senator, Mr. Biden had championed a 1994 crime bill that many experts say fueled mass incarceration. He has since expressed regret for his support of the legislation, and he committed during the 2020 campaign to addressing the long drug sentences that resulted.
Some congressional Democrats and others have also called on Mr. Biden to reduce the sentences of all 40 people on death row to life without parole. Mr. Trump supports the death penalty and restarted federal executions after a nearly 20-year pause during his first term.
The fate of those who were moved to home confinement during the pandemic, when Covid was spreading rapidly through jails and prisons, has been of particular concern to activists in recent weeks. Some Republicans, who are set to take control of Congress next month, have tried to push legislation that would have forced them to return to prison.
In his statement on Thursday, Mr. Biden said that many of those people would have received lower sentences if they had been charged under current laws. They had also been serving their sentences at home for at least a year, according to the White House.
“These commutation recipients, who were placed on home confinement during the Covid pandemic, have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities and have shown that they deserve a second chance,” he said.
The names of the recipients have not yet been provided.
Wendy Hechtman, one of the prisoners moved to home confinement during the pandemic, woke up in Buffalo on Thursday morning to her husband alerting her to Mr. Biden’s announcement. She is still serving a 15-year sentence for conspiracy to distribute a form of fentanyl and had been worried she would not be able to attend her daughter’s wedding next year in Quebec. Before Thursday, she had planned on calling into the wedding.
On Thursday morning, Ms. Hechtman was scrambling to find out if she was one of the 1,500 people whose sentences were eased by Mr. Biden.
“I’ve had a gut feeling for months now that I was going to be able to go, and if my name is on that list? I will be dancing at my daughter’s wedding this summer,” Ms. Hechtman said in an interview. “I can’t wait.”
Mr. Biden said he would take more steps in the weeks ahead and continue to review clemency petitions. His staff has been debating whether he should issue blanket pardons for a number of Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies to protect them from the “retribution” he has threatened, people familiar with the discussion have said.
White House officials do not believe the potential recipients have actually committed crimes, but they have grown increasingly worried that Mr. Trump’s selections for top Justice Department positions indicate that he will follow through on his repeated vows to seek revenge. The idea would be to pre-emptively extend executive clemency to a list of current and former government officials, effectively short-circuiting the next president’s promised campaign of reprisals.
Until now, Mr. Biden has been relatively constrained in his use of the presidential act of forgiveness. He has issued 26 individual pardons and 135 commutations, according to a tally kept by the pardon attorney. The Office of the Pardon Attorney, part of the Justice Department, has received nearly 12,000 requests for clemency during Mr. Biden’s term.
The president has issued categorical pardons for people convicted of simple use and possession of marijuana, although none of those people were in prison when he made his decision. He also cleared the records of former service members convicted of violating the military’s former laws against homosexual conduct.
