The deep legal team of attorneys at Palmer George PLLC in Coeur d’Alene collectively commands more than a century of on-point experience diligently representing clients facing misdemeanor and felony criminal charges.
Being targeted in a criminal probe in Idaho or elsewhere in the United States can change your life instantly and in a fundamentally adverse way, especially if you are a suspect in a drug-related case. We note on a page of our website addressing criminal law matters and their potential repercussions that, “Even simple possession of illegal drugs can lead to jail, fines and a criminal record that will follow you for years.”
Notably harsh outcomes in some drug-crimes cases have led in recent years to broad-based reform appeals, with critics of longstanding federal policies regarding mandatory minimum sentencing and reduced judicial discretion aligning from both sides of the political aisle.
It is that coming together that has likely led, at least to some extent, to bold criminal sentencing adjustments made in select drug cases by the Obama administration.
That willingness to act was never more overtly on display than it was last Thursday, the final working day for now ex-President Obama. Prior to formally turning over the reins of government to President Trump, Obama made a truly impressive use of the clemency power invested in presidents by commuting the sentences of 330 defendants incarcerated in federal prisons on nonviolent drug charges.
The Washington Post reports that the number of commutations granted Thursday stand as the most ever on a single day in the country’s history.
In fact, even the prior 12 presidents combined did not commute as many sentences as did Obama during his tenure. The former chief executive granted clemency 1,715 times, an undertaking which one ranking Department of Justice official terms “as enormous as it was unprecedented.”
