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Due Process Institute promotes fair and transparent clemency processes that can correct excessive or unjust sentences. Clemency is an important safety valve in the justice system.
Learn about Due Process Institute’s policy work to promote clemency.
Discover how Due Process Institute advocates in the courts for clemency.
Interested in learning about how we can improve the clemency system?
Due Process Institute urged President Biden and his administration to grant clemency for people who did not benefit from changes made by the First Step Act, people who were subject to the crack-powder cocaine sentencing disparity, and people who have spent decades in prison but cannot apply for compassionate release simply because they were sentenced under the “old law” before the adoption of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
In December 2024, President Biden granted clemency for nearly 1,500 justice impacted individuals. Then in January 2025, this was followed up with commutating the sentences of nearly 2,500 people who had received disproportionally long sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, many of which were based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine.
Due Process Institute applauded President Trump’s pardon of Alice Marie Johnson in August 2020, nearly two years after her sentence was first commuted. This was the culmination of the work of many advocacy organizations to shine a light on Alice Marie Johnson’s story where she was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for attempted possession of drugs and money laundering as a a first-time non-violent offender.