Page images
PDF
EPUB

chart I attached to the testimony will show, our rate and number of applications jumped dramatically as a result.

This large number of cases we now have must be now handled on a case-by-case basis, and we must give each applicant the same thorough review and deliberation as every other receives.

To do this in the limited time available, the President has ordered an expansion of the Board and its personnel. We will climb from 9 members and about 50 staff to 18 members and a staff of about 600. We must do this quickly; we must be fully staffed by May 1, and we do not have the luxury of dispensing with our work while we expand. We must locate lawyers in other Government offices, train them, and get them to preparing cases in a matter of days, not weeks or months. By September, we fully expect to have completed the recommendation process for all 18,000 cases.

Let me conclude with the observation that I believe President Ford has acted in the tradition of Presidents Truman, Wilson, Lincoln, and Washington. I hope that this hearing today will help to make more Americans aware of the deep historical routes of clemency and of the country's need for clemency now. Perhaps, if it serves that purpose, our being here today will make it just a little bit easier for those who do come back to integrate themselves fully, with dignity and with pride, as members of their community and as Americans.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. Thank you, Mr. Goodell, for your full statement. Of course, one function which these hearings will not serve is to alert any of the hundreds of thousands of people who might have participated in the President's program but, for one reason or another, declined to do so. They can no longer be applicants under your program. Is that not correct?

Mr. GOODELL. That is correct.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. I appreciate why you have suggested that you will need to expand your staff enormously because presently the Board has acted on only 114 cases out of the 18.000. This suggests that your goal of acting finally within 1 year of the Executive order is almost unobtainable at the rate you have been proceeding. Somewhat over 6 months have transpired since the Executive order.

Of course, everyone understands it takes a while to comprise a board; it takes a while to bring a staff into being and to act on petitions, but the fact that over 6 months have transpired and only 114 cases are disposed of does suggest that the outlook is not very good for your completing your task on time.

Mr. GOODELL. Mr. Chairman, based on the statistics which you cite, that would appear to be the case. We, however, are very confident that we will be able to dispose of these cases. The one major problem that we have in so doing would be to put together an adequate number of staff people in the short period of time in order to process the cases. I think the Board, without question, can dispose of the cases. We have had two test runs now with the Board breaking into panels of three, and the Board members reading the summaries in advance and working out the mitigating and aggravating factors in advance that they see in those summaries. We have found that, for instance, in the cases of those where there is general agreement there should a pardon without alternative service, we can run through very quickly in those

cases and there is no reason to discuss them further if they are going to get the very best result from their viewpoint from the Board.

We have guaranteed that any member of the Board may bring a case from a panel to the full Board for deliberation. In our two test runs, working with three-person panels, we have found that we can expedite rather substantially the consideration by the Board and, by increasing the Board to 18, it would be my anticipation that in June, July, and August we would have four, 3-person panels operating virtually every day.

So, the whole question is whether we can get enough staff to process these cases to the point where they are ready for disposition by the Board.

I might also say that by that expedited procedure we guarantee that the cases that are difficult, where they are marginal, where there are factors that have to be discussed by the Board, have ample time to be discussed by the Board.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. For purposes of organization and hearing of cases and for purposes of evolving regulations and guidelines, have you found anything else concurrent in government or historically to use as a model for your organization or for your guidelines and regulations?

Mr. GOODELL. We looked for models and found none, literally. There were no precedents.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. For example, this subcommittee tomorrow will present in this room for Judiciary Committee approval a piece of legislation for the complete reorganization of the Federal Parole Board System. They have similar tasks to you; they review cases of people who are to return to society. They have many thousands in their jurisdiction, they act on a case-by-case basis, and they have a Board of eight members. So, they have a similar task, and I am interested in how your own organization has evolved its methods of proceeding.

I take it, up to the present time, that all members of the Clemency Board have examined each case on a case-by-case method; at least they see the file or they, one or more of them, interview the applicant. Is that correct?

Mr. GOODELL. That is correct up to now. It will not be the case in the future.

Mr. Chairman, I am uncomfortable with the parole model. I know you are aware that I testified on that legislation and have rather strong feelings on the subject that would not be appropriate for me to go into at this point.

Mr. KASTENMEIER. Nonetheless, there are analogies.

Mr. GOODELL. There are analogies that I can see. We are dealing with a similar kind of situation. Let me say that we acted immediately to set out as explicitly as possible all factors that would be considered as aggravating, all factors that would be considered as mitigating, give weight to those factors. For instance, a very clear factor is the length of time an individual has served in prison. Can the Clemency Board determine to give 3 days' credit of alternative service for every day that was served in prison. That does not mean arbitrarily that it ends up with a mathematical computation, because all of the other aggravating and mitigating factors are taken into consideration thereafter.

58-201-75-3

I think our Clemency Board has no precedent. I do not believe the way we have proceeded has been the case in the parole procedures in the past, and I am very proud of the procedures and substantive rules that the Clemency Board has established.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. On a different subject, you refer to recommendations of the Board to the President. To date the President has acted on 65 cases. Has the President in any case not taken the recommendation of the Clemency Board? Does the President, in fact, or someone acting more directly in his behalf, actually review your recommendations?

Mr. GOODELL. The procedure thus far has involved the President personally. I met with the President in each case to present the initial recommendation of the Board. I know, as a matter of my own knowledge, that he had read those summaries; he had marked them up; he asked me questions about them, a number of the cases.

On these 65, the first 65 cases, the President ultimately went along with the recommendation of the Clemency Board in every case. We have presented to him, or will be presenting to him, cases where we feel he should make the judgment, because there is a matter of policy that has not been presented to the Board before, and it is an interpretation of what the President conceives his program to be.

The President has contributed in several instances to a case disposition by my talking to him and saying: What did you have in mind? The Board would like your guidance; here is a case; it will be a precedent for a large number of other cases before the Board. So the President has participated in that evolution of our program where we felt we needed guidance from him.

I would say to you, however, that I do not anticipate that, now that we have reached the stage where most of the major substantive and procedure decisions have been made, that the President is going to go through every one of these cases. I think I can guarantee to you that he is not going to take the time or have the time to go through 18,867 cases.

Having established the procedures and the substantive policies, I think we have reached a point now where, unless the Board specifically calls a case to the President's attention, he will follow our recommendations. We do have several, as I mentioned, that we are going to call to his attention and where the Board is divided. We have one case, one of the few cases, in which the Board is divided five to four, and we agreed we would take it to the President and let him decide it.

It is a matter of great consequence and great division on our Board. I should also emphasize to you, however, that although our Board started out with many different opinions, a nine-member Board with three Vietnam veterans and three individuals who actively opposed the war, including myself, in those first 2 months there was an interesting, rather dramatic dynamics that took place in our Board. We all were in favor of conditional clemency. Each had a somewhat different view as to how it ought to be implemented, and I say say to you that, in terms of the substantive procedural issues, the Board came out unanimous. We have no difference on these substantive procedural policies.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. I am going to ask you just one more question and yield to my colleagues. I have a number of questions I would like to ask, but I want them to have an opportunity to ask you their questions shortly.

In your March 27 press conference, I believe you stated that any further extension of clemency would require congressional action, the President having decided not to extend the program. Is that correct? Mr. GOODELL. Yes, that is correct.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. I ask you that because I wonder whether you concede that the Congress does have jurisdiction legislatively to act in this field concurrent with that of the President under his constitutional powers?

Mr. GOODELL. No, I do not concede that. I think with reference to the constitutional authority of the Congress, I would defer to the Justice Department in their testimony, which I think, they will direct themselves to that point.

What I had reference to in that statement, Mr. Chairman, was that the President was limited in setting up the administrative structure to 1 year's period without authorization and appropriation by Congress. That authority, clearly, Congress has. The President could not continue to support the Clemency Board out of unanticipated funds beyond 1 year. I think that is a very proper restriction that Congress has placed upon the use of unanticipated-needs funds, and, in order for us, as you pointed out earlier, to process the 18,000 cases we are going to have to extend ourselves tremendously to complete the job by September. Had he extended another month, I believe it would have made that processing task impossible, and he would have presented Congress then with an incomplete program.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. Just a clarification of that. You then feel that Congress may be involved through the appropriations process and could authorize extension of a program, that program being essentially what the President has already initiated under his constitutional clemency powers. Is that correct?

Mr. GOODELL. Yes; I believe Congress would have the authority to authorize and appropriate money for the extension of the President's clemency program. The President then, of course, is not directed how he exercises his discretionary authority and constitutional authority to pardon.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. I yield to the gentleman from California, Mr. Wiggins.

Mr. WIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Goodell, on page 13 of your statement you characterize the jurisdiction of the Clemency Board and differentiate between that jurisdiction and the jurisdiction of the military and U.S. attorneys in handling different kinds of cases. First, do the figures presented to us, of 18,600, encompass only those that fall within the jurisdiction of the Clemency Board, or is that every case in all three categories of jurisdiction?

Mr. GOODELL. The 18,867 is only the Clemency Board cases. I believe we can get it for you exactly. The Justice Department program concluded at about 550, or about 600, and the Defense Department program concluded at 5,500.

Mr. KASTEN MEIER. If the gentleman will yield. Out of the number of actual applicants the Justice Department has received, 550 out of 4,000 eligible; Department of Defense, 5,300 out of 12,500 eligible.

Mr. GOODELL. That is roughly correct. I think they will have the precise figures. That is about what my recollection was, and the staff may have some updating on it. I am not sure.

Mr. WIGGINS. Then, roughly, 23.000 or 24.000 people have, in one form or another, availed themselves of some clemency mechanism. Your agency has published rules and regulations which govern the processing of applicants, and I take it that there is a certain unity, a certain consistency in the treatment of offenders since they are all treated by the same agency.

Are you aware of whether or not the Justice Department or the Department of Defense has promulgated regulations of their own, so that their cases are treated with some sense of consistency?

Mr. GOODELL. They have internal standards and regulations which have evolved over a period of time. I know that the so-called Clemency Board, the Military Board, that met on the military cases had specific factors that they considered mitigating and aggravating; the Justice Department also. I do not believe they have been promulgated formally the way ours have. No; they have not.

Mr. WIGGINS. Do you know whether or not your agency treats those individuals within your jurisdiction in a significantly different way than the military or the Department of Justice treats individuals within ther jurisdictions?

Mr. GOODELL. They are treated differently, and they are in a different category, since our applicants have already been punished for their offenses. So, we do take a different approach, and as a general rule, since they have already been punished, our applicants end up with a great deal less requirement of alternative service.

Mr. WIGGINS. What is the nature of some of the alternative service which you order?

Mr. GOODELL. The alternative service, itself?

Mr. WIGGINS. Yes.

Mr. GOODELL. Well, I would defer an answer to that in detail to the Selective Service System which has been handling that problem and, I think, handling it superbly under difficult circumstances with the job market as it is, but it ranges across the board in public or nonprofit employment in the public interest, public health, public safety. It can be hospital jobs, jobs at libraries, with various types of programs to help in charitable causes, some types of church programs. As long as the job is not in the competitive job market and serves the public interest, it can be approved for alternative service, and the Selective Service System has a very long list of the types of employment that are eligible.

Mr. WIGGINS. In the cases within your jurisdiction, is the recommendation to the President for a pardon or not made at the completion of the alternative service?

Mr. GOODELL. The recommendation for a pardon is made at the time we have concluded our determination as to what period of alternative service should be required. There is a second process. The President signs a warrant which, in effect, is an offer to the individual that if he completes that alternative service that he will give him a pardon. Upon our certification, based upon the report from Selective Service, we then automatically certify to the Attorney General completion of the alternative service as proscribed by the President, and it is an automatic pardon at that point.

Mr. WIGGINS. Then the penalty for failure to complete alternative service is simply that the pardon will not be issued?

« PreviousContinue »