CLINTON NOT ONE FOR CLEMENCIES
The President's Rate of Granting Pardons Ranks Lowest of Recent Leaders

By Glen Elsasser
Washington Bureau 
December 6, 1999 
reprinted from Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON -- A somber crew knelt in Lafayette Park, facing the White House in
silent protest. Their posters charged that Leonard Peltier, a Native
American leader, has been unjustly imprisoned since 1976.

For nearly a month, Jean Day of Ft. Stevens, Wis., and several dozen
others had rallied in an effort to persuade President Clinton to
exercise a unique presidential power on behalf of Peltier--to pardon
him, just as he had granted clemency to members of the FALN, the
Puerto Rican terrorist group, after they had spent some 20 years in
prison.

    A member of the Ho-Chunk Indian nation, Day spoke of Peltier as a
friend and a "political prisoner." By her account, Peltier, 54, is ill
from jaw surgery and is not guilty of murdering two FBI agents on a
South Dakota reservation in 1975.

Few pleas for clemency provoke such a public spectacle as Peltier's,
replete with regular demonstrations and an e-mail campaign.

But this is the holiday season, when the White House becomes not just
a scene of thanksgiving and celebration but also of clemency. It's the
time when presidents often choose to free inmates and absolve others
of penalties incurred for breaking the law.

However, those seeking clemency this season, ranging from Peltier to
Patricia Hearst Shaw, might be unsettled by one fact: Clinton, despite
Republican critics' penchant for calling him soft on crime, has
granted far fewer requests for clemency than any recent chief
executive.

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