Obama has commuted 325 sentences this month alone, more than double the amount commuted during the rest of his presidency and more than the past 10 presidents combined, in an attempt to clear out a backlog of more than 11,000 pending clemency petitions. In 2014, the Obama administration announced a clemency initiative aimed at nonviolent offenders serving time under mandatory minimum sentencing laws that have since been reduced.
"They are individuals who received unduly harsh sentences under outdated laws for committing largely nonviolent drug crimes, for example, the 35 individuals whose life sentences were commuted today," White House Counsel Neil Eggleston wrote in a blog post Tuesday. "For each of these applicants, the President considers the individual merits of each application to determine that an applicant is ready to make use of his or her second chance."
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Criminal justice groups applauded the latest set of commutations.
"Mandatory sentences, and especially mandatory life sentences for non-violent offenses, should be abandoned once and for all," Julie Stewart, the president of the nonprofit group Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said in a statement. "We applaud the President for using the clemency power to free people who fully expected to die in prison and for shining a light on the excesses of federal drug sentencing."
Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has blasted Obama in campaign speeches for letting inmates like Tyler go. "Some of these people are bad dudes," Trump said earlier this month, "And these are people who are out, they're walking the streets. Sleep tight, folks."
