November 29, 2016

The Honorable Barack Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We have strongly supported your initiative to grant clemency to incarcerated

individuals, and we applaud your efforts to review as many petitions as possible

before you leave office. We know how important this issue is to you, and with time

running short, we know your team is working overtime to commute the sentences

of as many worthy individuals as possible.

However, in the interest of justice, we hope you will consider additional steps that

would expand the number of individuals eligible for relief. While your

administration continues to review individual petitions, we urge you to also

determine that nonviolent offenders in certain extremely low-­‐risk categories either

deserve expedited review or should be granted clemency absent an individualized

review. With time running short on your time in office, these steps would be a way

for you to deliver lasting change for thousands of deserving individuals and their

families.

For example, your administration could make sure that you have given

consideration to all of the people who did not get the benefit of retroactivity under

the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, including those who filed late or did not file for

clemency. The U.S. Sentencing Commission staff could identify these individuals and

DOJ could use prison placement (to a camp – the lowest level of federal

incarceration – or to a low or medium facility) as a surrogate for how an individual

has behaved in prison. There is bipartisan agreement that pre-­‐Fair Sentencing Act

crack sentences are unjust and have disproportionately affected people of color, but

there is no mechanism for addressing that injustice outside of clemency.

People who have received sentences in narcotic cases involving other drugs besides

crack who through good behavior worked their way down to placement in a camp

or low or medium facility could receive similar consideration. You could also give

special priority to veterans and older individuals and could consider granting relief

to individuals who have been labeled as career offenders who have only narcotics as

a triggering offense, a group that the Sentencing Commission recently urged

Congress to treat differently because of their lower rates of recidivism and less

culpable conduct. Similarly, those individuals who have received double mandatory