President Obama has used the power of the nation’s highest office Tuesday to commute a convicted drug dealer’s sentence from 15 years to 11 1/2 because of a clerical typo in his sentencing. The inmate, Ceasar Cantu, will now serve 3 1/2 years less than expected.
Cantu of Katy, Texas, pleaded guilty in 2006 to trafficking marijuana and money laundering. Even though he had no previous criminal record, the large quantity of marijuana he was planning to distribute — between 3,000 and 10,000 kilograms — warranted that he be given the recommended sentence.
But because of a typo, the recommended sentence grew by more than three years.
According to HuffPost reporter Nedra Pickler:
Cantu’s commutation came from a typo in the “base offense level” of his presentencing report ? a numerical rating calculated by the court under federal sentencing guidelines that takes into consideration the crime’s severity and the defendant’s criminal history. The pre-sentence report correctly listed a level of 34 in one part of the report, but incorrectly listed it at 36 in the portion listing his recommended sentencing range.
Amazingly, Cantu didn’t learn about this error until he had already served six years of his 15-year sentence. He subsequently accused his former defense attorney, John Weber, of negligence, but by then the only course of action that could be taken was for the president to grant commutation.
Obama Press Secretary?Jay Carney held up Cantu’s case as a prime example of why the power of presidential clemency is necessary.
Given the circumstances of this case and the manifest injustice of keeping a person in federal prison for an extra three and a half years because of a typographical mistake, the president wanted to act as quickly as possible.?This is a matter of basic fairness and it reflects the important role of clemency as a fail-safe in our judicial system.
No doubt right-wingers reading this will react by saying that Obama is too soft on convicted felons, but the truth is that he has pardoned or commuted the sentence of fewer applicants than any other modern president. Whereas Reagan pardoned roughly one out of every three persons whose applications were processed by the Justice Department, Obama — rightly or wrongly — has pardoned only one out of every 50.
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Joseph Guyer?lives in Texas. An ad man by trade, he firmly agrees?with Bill Clinton that there is nothing wrong with America that can’t be cured by what is right with America. You can read more of his work at?Liberals Unite,?DemoNews, and?SenaReider. You can also follow him on Twitter?@joerobguy.
edited by tw
