On Thanksgiving, Hunter Biden got the word from his father, President Biden, that he would be pardoned for tax and gun law violations, saving him from potentially spending a few years in federal prison.
But Michael Montalvo, 78, a former cocaine ringleader who has spent nearly 40 years behind bars racking up course certifications, credits for good behavior and recommendations from his prison wardens, is still waiting to hear about his request for a pardon.
So is Michelle West, who has spent more than 30 years in prison for her role in a drug conspiracy connected to a murder, while the gunman, who testified against her, has gone free. And Sara Gallegos, who is serving a 20-year sentence for being briefly involved in a drug ring after her husband was murdered when she was pregnant with her fourth child.
“Everyone wants that chance,” said Lazara Serrano, who is waiting for her mother to win release from prison after more than 25 years, and who was stunned to hear that Hunter Biden’s criminal case was over. “For something just to be so sudden, and to happen right away, is crazy when there’s a line of people waiting.”
Andrea James, who runs an organization that helps incarcerated women, said she did not begrudge Hunter Biden his pardon, but said she was hopeful that it would “move President Biden to consider other families who’ve endured what they have gone through for much longer periods of time.”
Critics have complained that Mr. Biden has approved a smaller fraction of the requests for clemency that he has received than any other modern president. Of course, he still has time, and presidents have made a habit of waiting until the 11th hour to announce their clemency decisions.
“This pardon of Hunter Biden better be the first of a huge flurry of commutations,” wrote Rachel Barkow, a law professor at New York University, in a social media post. “There are so many cases even more deserving than this one that the Pardon Attorney has recommended granting, and they’re just waiting for Biden’s signature.”
Clemency petitions recommended for approval go through multiple layers of review, including by the U.S. attorney in the jurisdiction where the person was convicted, the deputy attorney general and the White House.
But presidents need not wait for that process or follow those recommendations. They may pardon any federal crime or reduce a sentence through a commutation.
Mr. Biden had previously said he would not pardon his son, but in a statement explaining his decision he said his son had been singled out for political reasons and given harsher treatment than others who had committed similar offenses.
The Office of the Pardon Attorney, part of the Justice Department, has received nearly 12,000 requests for clemency during Mr. Biden’s term. The president has so far issued 157 clemency grants — 25 pardons and 132 commutations — according to a tally kept by the pardon attorney.
That is fewer than the 238 — 144 pardons and 94 commutations — that Mr. Trump issued during his first administration.
In addition to the 157 individual petitions, Mr. Biden has issued blanket pardons by proclamation. In October 2022, he pardoned people convicted in federal court of marijuana possession. The next year, he expanded the number of offenses covered.
This June, he pardoned military veterans who had been convicted of having gay sex, a crime under military law until 2013.
Some hope that Mr. Biden will use his power to take a stand against the death penalty, which he promise during his campaign to end through an act of Congress. Opponents of capital punishment have suggested that he commute the sentences of all 40 people on federal death row instead.
Others argue that Mr. Biden should grant blanket clemency to the thousands of people who were placed on house arrest during the Covid-19 pandemic to lower their chances of illness. They could still be returned to prison at the discretion of the Bureau of Prisons. A report by the agency found that those people had a lower rate of recidivism than similar prisoners.
Asked on Monday whether other clemency requests would receive the same attention as Hunter Biden’s case, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said Mr. Biden would announce more pardons at the end of his term.
“He’s thinking through that process very thoroughly. There’s a process in place, obviously,” she said.
Presidents have long used their clemency power to reward allies and those with connections, but also to shorten the sometimes too long arm of the law. George Washington pardoned two men sentenced to die after they helped mount an armed rebellion against steep taxes on hard liquor, saying that peace had been restored and that the men had “abandoned their errors.”
But clemency has taken on a new significance since prison populations began steadily rising in the 1990s. Even as society began to recognize that the United States was an outlier — it now has by far the largest prison population of any of its peers — there remained few routes out of prison for those already there.
While a number of changes were made to shorten prison sentences, some were not made retroactive. That left an aging prison population serving lengths of time, like Ms. West’s two life sentences plus 50 years, that the same crimes would not earn them in today’s courts.
Before 2020, the federal prison population had been falling steadily from its peak of 219,000 prisoners in 2013. During the Biden administration, it leveled off and even began to inch up.
Ms. James’s organization, the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, has advocated pardons for a long list of prisoners who are ill, elderly, long-timers or “survived and punished,” meaning their crimes stem from fighting back against abusers.
Zoë Towns, the executive director of Fwd.us, which advocates overhauling the criminal justice system, says Mr. Biden should use his last weeks in office to rethink the pardon system entirely, which she says has focused too much on people who are nearing the end of their life. She said he should instead consider offering pardons to younger people whose convictions were barriers to employment and productive lives.
They should be pardoned quickly, she said, “because they need to go get a job.”
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