List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the President of the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_or_granted_clemency_by_the_President_of_the_United_States

This is an incomplete list that may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with entries that are reliably sourced.

The following List of people pardoned or granted clemency by the President of the United States documents the most prominent cases of each presidency. As granted by the Constitution (Article II, Section 2, Clause 1), Presidents have the power to grant clemency in one or more of the following ways: the ability to grant a full pardon, to commute a sentence, or to rescind a fine. U.S. Presidents have no power to grant clemency for crimes prosecuted under state law.

As to the difference between a pardon and a commutation:

• A pardon is an executive order vacating a conviction.
• A commutation is the mitigation of the sentence of someone currently serving a sentence for a crime pursuant to a conviction, without vacating the conviction itself.

Approximately 20,000 pardons and clemencies were issued by U.S. presidents in the 20th century alone. The records of acts of clemency were public until 1934. In 1981 theOffice of the Pardon Attorney was created and records from President George H. W. Bush forward are now listed.^[1] This list includes pardons and commutations.^[2]