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It is widespread conventional wisdom that presidential pardons--the only way for offenders to remove or eliminate all disabilities that arise from a federal or military offense--are political. We move beyond this belief and assess five broad ways that federal pardons may be systematically influenced by the policy agendas present in a separated powers system. We model the aggregate dispensation of clemency appeals (requests for pardons) using Prais-Winsten regression and find that the probability of denials for executive clemency reflects the president's own agenda and ideological position, congressional attention to criminal justice issues, and the homicide rate. In sum, both policy signals and the political processes they signify permeate the presidential pardons process. Keywords: presidency; executive branch; pardons; clemency; executive privilege; criminal justice; separated powers; policy signals; policy agendas

The Constitution vests the President of the United States with "power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment" (art. ii, sec. […]

The report of a telephonic interview based survey on the views of Americans on presidential pardons is presented.

Gov. Pat Quinn (D) granted almost 150 pardons 4/2 to 'an array of ex-drug offenders, prostitutes, robbers and burglars.' State Sen. Bill Brady (R) criticized Quinn regarding the infamous prison [...]

The 'person of interest' in the 'slaying of four police officers' in WA 11/29 a.m. was 'released' from an AR jail 'nine years ago' after then Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) [...]