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President Grants Commutations to 72 Federal Prisoners, Including Donald Lee Graham
WASHINGTON
After commuting the sentences of 200 prisoners in October, President Obama today commuted the sentences of 72 more prisoners. Of today's 72 grants, at least 51 were in cases supported by Clemency Project 2014. That brings the total number of commutations granted by President Obama to date to 944, of which at least 469 were supported by Clemency Project 2014.
"As we near 1,000 grants by President Obama, nearly 500 of which were supported by Clemency Project 2014, our hearts fill with joy for those whose sentences have been commuted and hope for those whose petitions await action by the administration," said Cynthia W. Roseberry, project manager for Clemency Project 2014. "The Obama administration has said it was committed to ever more grants, and it seems quite clear that the President's actions are matching his words. None of the work of Clemency Project 2014 to provide pro bono attorneys to thousands of prisoners would be possible without the overwhelming commitment of the bar to step up and volunteer to help these worthy applicants."
Among the prisoners who received commutations was Donald Lee Graham, who has been serving life without parole for a nonviolent drug offense since 2006. The American Civil Liberties Union featured Graham in the report "A Living Death: Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses."
Graham talked about his sentence in an interview for the 2013 report: "Why should I want to live? I would rather [have] been sentenced to lethal injection, than suffer the way I am. If I did not care for my family, I would ask to die, but I must keep my family together. I don't want them to suffer any more than they already are."
Graham was sentenced to mandatory life without parole under a three-strikes law. The judge counted a nonviolent juvenile felony conviction as one of Graham's strikes. Graham appealed his life sentence and lost, but in a dissent, Judge Gilbert S. Merritt wrote, "[T]he sentencing of this nonviolent, 30-year-old petty drug trafficker to life imprisonment by using a juvenile conviction as a necessary third strike not only violates clear congressional intent ... but also violates sound principles of penological policy based on the Eighth Amendment values recently outlined by the Supreme Court ..."
For "A Living Death: Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses," visit:
https://www.aclu.org/report/living-death-life-without-parole-nonviolent-offenses
For more information about Clemency Project 2014, visit:
www.clemencyproject2014.org
For more information about the ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project, visit:
https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform
This press release is available at:
https://www.aclu.org/news/president-grants-commutations-72-federal-prisoners-including-donald-lee-graham
Clemency Project 2014, an unprecedented, wholly independent effort by the nation's bar, has recruited and trained nearly 4,000 volunteer lawyers from diverse practice backgrounds and completed screening of over 34,000 of the more than 36,000 federal prisoners who have requested volunteer assistance. The Project's painstaking review of these cases revealed that the overwhelming majority of those requests were by applicants who did not meet the criteria put forward by the Department of Justice in April 2014. To date, Clemency Project 2014 has submitted more than 2,150 petitions to the Office of the Pardon Attorney.
The American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Federal Public and Community Defenders, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers have joined together under a working group they call Clemency Project 2014. Through the efforts of Clemency Project 2014, the participating organizations are identifying potential clemency petitioners and recruiting and training volunteer lawyers to assist them in securing clemency.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Pope Leo Delivers 'Rebuke' of Pete Hegseth With Anti-War Palm Sunday Sermon
"This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war."
Mar 29, 2026
Pope Leo XIV used his Palm Sunday sermon to take what appears to be a shot at US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
In his sermon, excerpts of which he published on social media, the pope emphasized Christian teachings against violence while criticizing anyone who would invoke Jesus Christ to justify a war.
"This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war," Pope Leo said. "He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them."
The pope also encouraged followers to "raise our prayers to the Prince of Peace so that he may support people wounded by war and open concrete paths of reconciliation and peace."
While speaking at the Pentagon last week, Hegseth directly invoked Jesus when discussing the Trump administration's unprovoked and unconstitutional war with Iran.
Specifically, Hegseth offered up a prayer in which he asked God to give US soldiers "wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy," adding that "we ask these things with bold confidence in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus Christ."
Mother Jones contributing writer Alex Nguyen described the pope's sermon as a "rebuke" of Hegseth, whom he noted "has been open about his support for a Christian crusade" in the Middle East.
Pope Leo is not the only Catholic leader speaking against using Christian faith to justify wars of aggression. Two weeks ago, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, said "the abuse and manipulation of God’s name to justify this and any other war is the gravest sin we can commit at this time."
“War is first and foremost political and has very material interests, like most wars," Cardinal Pizzaballa added.
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As Trump Prepares Iran Ground Assault, Expert Warns He's 'Run Out of Options' for Victory
"Trump’s problem is that whatever the claims he might make about the damage to Iran’s nuclear and military capacity, which is substantial, the regime survives, the international economy has been severely disrupted, and the bills keep on coming in."
Mar 29, 2026
President Donald Trump is reportedly preparing to launch some kind of ground assault on Iran in the coming weeks, but one prominent military strategy expert believes he's heading straight for defeat.
The Washington Post on Saturday reported that the Pentagon is preparing for "weeks" of ground operations in Iran, which for the last month has disrupted global energy markets by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz in response to aerial assaults by the US and Israel.
The Post's sources revealed that "any potential ground operation would fall short of a full-scale invasion and could instead involve raids by a mixture of Special Operations forces and conventional infantry troops" that could be used to seize Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil export hub, or to search out and destroy weapons systems that could be used by the Iranians to target ships along the strait.
Michael Eisenstadt, director of the Military and Security Studies Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the Post that taking over Kharg Island would be a highly risky operation for American troops, even if initially successful.
“I just wouldn’t want to be in that small place with Iran’s ability to rain down drones and maybe artillery,” said Eisenstadt.
Eisenstadt's analysis was echoed by Ret. Gen. Joseph Votel, former head of US Central Command, who told ABC News that seizing and occupying Kharg Island would put US troops in a state of constant danger, warning they could be "very, very vulnerable" to drones and missiles launched from the shore.
Lawrence Freedman, professor emeritus of war studies at King's College London, believes that the president has already checkmated himself regardless of what shape any ground operation takes.
In an analysis published Sunday, Freedman declared Trump had run "out of options" for victory, as there have been no signs of the Iranian regime crumbling due to US-Israeli attacks.
Freedman wrote that Trump now "appears to inhabit an alternative reality," noting that "his utterances have become increasingly incoherent, with contradictory statements following quickly one after the other, and frankly delusional claims."
Trump's loan real option at this point, Freedman continued, would to simply declare that he had achieved an unprecedented victory and just walk away. But even in that case, wrote Freedman, "this would mean leaving behind a mess in the Gulf" with no guarantee that Iran would re-open the Strait of Hormuz.
"Success in war is judged not by damage caused but by political objectives realized," Freedman wrote in his conclusion. "Here the objective was regime change, or at least the emergence of a new compliant leader... Trump’s problem is that whatever the claims he might make about the damage to Iran’s nuclear and military capacity, which is substantial, the regime survives, the international economy has been severely disrupted, and the bills keep on coming in."
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Critics Blast 'Clueless' New York Times for Dismissive Coverage of Historic No Kings Protests
"The NY Times saves its harshest skepticism for progressives," said one critic.
Mar 29, 2026
The New York Times is drawing criticism for publishing articles that downplayed the significance of Saturday's No Kings protests, which initial estimates suggest was the largest protest event in US history.
In a Times article that drew particular ire, reporter Jeremy Peters questioned whether nationwide events that drew an estimated 8 million people to the streets "would be enough to influence the course of the nation’s politics."
"Can the protests harness that energy and turn it into victories in the November midterm elections?" Peters asked rhetorically. "How can they avoid a primal scream that fades into a whimper?"
Journalist and author Mark Harris called Peters' take on the protests "predictable" and said it was framed so that the protests would appear insignificant no matter how many people turned out.
"There's a long, bad journalistic tradition," noted Harris. "All conservative grass-roots political movements are fascinating heartland phenomena, all progressive grass-roots political movements are ineffectual bleating. This one is written off as powered by white female college grads—the wine-moms slur, basically."
Media critic Dan Froomkin was event blunter in his criticism of the Peters piece.
"Putting anti-woke hack Jeremy Peters on this story is an act of war by the NYT against No Kings," he wrote.
Mark Jacob, former metro editor at the Chicago Tribune, also took a hatchet to Peters' analysis.
"The NY Times saves its harshest skepticism for progressives," he wrote. "Instead of being impressed by 3,000-plus coordinated protests, NYT dismisses the value of 'hitting a number' and asks if No Kings will be 'a primal scream that fades into a whimper.' F off, NY Times. We'll defeat fascism without you."
The Media and Democracy Project slammed the Times for putting Peters' analysis of the protests on its front page while burying straight news coverage of the events on page A18.
"NYT editors CHOSE that Jeremy Peters's opinions would frame the No Kings demonstrations and pro-democracy movement to millions of NYT readers," the group commented.
Joe Adalian, west coast editor for New York Mag's Vulture, criticized a Times report on the No Kings demonstrations that quoted a "skeptic" of the protests without noting that said skeptic was the chairman of the Ole Miss College Republicans.
"Of course, the Times doesn’t ID him as such," remarked Adalian. "He's just a Concerned Youth."
Jeff Jarvis, professor emeritus at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, took issue with a Times piece that offered five "takeaways" from the No Kings events that somehow managed to miss their broader significance.
"I despise the five-takeaways journalistic trope the Broken Times loves so," Jarvis wrote. "It is reductionist, hubristic in its claim to summarize any complex event. This one leaves out much, like the defense of democracy against fascism."
Journalist Miranda Spencer took stock of the Times' entire coverage of the No Kings demonstrations and declared it "clueless," while noting that USA Today did a far better job of communicating their significance to readers.
Harper's Magazine contributing editor Scott Horton similarly argued that international news organizations were giving the No Kings events more substantive coverage than the Times.
"In Le Monde and dozens of serious newspapers around the world, prominent coverage of No Kings 3, which brought millions of Americans on to the streets to protest Trump," Horton observed. "In NYT, an illiterate rant from Jeremy W Peters and no meaningful coverage of the protests. Something very strange going on here."
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