{UAH} In final act as president, Obama commutes 330 drug sentences

In final act as president, Obama commutes 330 drug sentences

Published January 19, 2017

Associated Press

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Jan. 18, 2017: President Barack Obama speaks during his final presidential news conference in the briefing room of the White House in Washington.  (AP)

WASHINGTON –  In a last major act as president, Barack Obama cut short the sentences of 330 federal inmates convicted of drug crimes on Thursday, bringing his bid to correct what he's called a systematic injustice to a climactic close.

With his final offer of clemency, Obama brought his total number of commutations granted to 1,715, more than any other president in U.S. history, the White House said. During his presidency Obama ordered free 568 inmates who had been sentenced to life in prison.

"He wanted to do it. He wanted the opportunity to look at as many as he could to provide relief," Neil Eggleston, Obama's White House counsel, said in an interview in his West Wing office. "He saw the injustice of the sentences that were imposed in many situations, and he has a strong view that people deserve as second chance."

For Obama, it was the last time he planned to exercise his presidential powers in any significant way. At noon on Friday, Obama will stand with President-elect Donald Trump as his successor is sworn in and Obama's chapter in history comes to an end.

Even as Obama issued the commutations, the White House had been mostly cleared out to make way for Trump. In between carrying out their last duties, the few remaining staffers were packing up belongings as photos of Obama were taken down from the walls of the West Wing corridors.

The final batch of commutations — more in a single day than on any other day in U.S. history — was the culmination of Obama's second-term effort to try to remedy the consequences of decades of onerous sentencing requirements that he said had imprisoned thousands of drug offenders for too long. Obama repeatedly called on Congress to pass a broader criminal justice fix, but lawmakers never acted.

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