Jacob Sullum on Obama's New Interest in Commutations
Darrell Hayden got a life sentence for managing a marijuana farm in Michigan. "He's seen murderers and bank robbers come and go while he's been in prison," his daughter, Lisa Hayden, told a Kentucky newspaper last year. "Something's really wrong with that."
Evidently President Obama agreed. Hayden was one of 22 drug offenders whose sentences Obama commuted last week. Jacob Sullum says this latest batch of commutations, which doubled Obama's total in a single day, suggests his new openness to clemency petitions is more than rhetorical.