President Biden also reduced the sentence to 75 for nonviolent, drug-related crimes.
United States President Joe Biden has given the first three pardons of his presidency.
Among those who offered clemency on Tuesday included a Kennedy-era US Secret Service agent convicted of federal bribery charges linked to charges that he tried to sell a classified file. The agent, Abraham Bolden Sr., has said that he was set up to speak out against racist and unprofessional behavior in the Secret Service.
Biden also pardoned two men who had been convicted of drug-related charges but became pillars in their communities, and reduced the sentences of 75 others to nonviolent, drug-related convictions. .
“America is a country of laws and second chances, redemption and rehabilitation,” Biden said in a statement announcing the clemency, which is a series of job-training and re-entry programs for those in prison or recently released. It was with the launch of the series.
“Elected officials, faith leaders, civil rights advocates, and law enforcement leaders on both sides of the aisle agree that our criminal justice system can and should reflect these core values that enable safe and strong communities.”
Bolden, now 86, was the first Black Secret Service agent to serve for the presidency. In 1964, he faced federal bribery charges involving charges that he attempted to sell a copy of a Secret Service file.
His first trial resulted in a hung jury. He was found guilty at the second trial, but declined to be tried again after key witnesses admitted to lying at the prosecutor’s request.
Bolden, who spent six years in prison, has maintained his innocence and has written a book about his ordeal.
Also pardoned was 51-year-old Betty Jo Bogans, who was convicted in 1998 of attempting to transport drugs for her boyfriend and his partner with the intention of distributing crack cocaine in Texas, and of Athens, Georgia. Dexter Jackson 52, who was convicted. 2002 Using his pool hall to facilitate the smuggling of marijuana.
The White House highlighted that both had served their communities in the light of their beliefs.
Civil rights and criminal justice reform groups have prompted the White House to work harder to reduce sentences and reduce inequalities in the criminal justice system, especially when it comes to low-level drug offenders who are charged today. If you leave, you will face a very mild punishment.
The US Constitution empowers the President to pardon individuals who have been convicted of federal crimes.
