US president under pressure to pardon huge numbers of people, including those on death row, before Trump takes over
President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and is pardoning 39 Americans convicted of non-violent crimes in the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
The commutations announced on Thursday were for people who had served out home confinement sentences for at least one year after they were released. Prisons were uniquely bad for spreading the virus and some inmates were released in part to stop the spread. At one point, one in five prisoners had Covid-19, according to a tally kept by the Associated Press.
