Tennessee’s GOP governor is pardoning 43 more people. He stresses it’s not like what Biden did

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, announced Friday that he is pardoning 43 people who have served their sentences. He emphasized that his actions are “very different” from President Joe Biden’s recent wave of lump sum payments.

Lee’s latest clemency actions are nearly double his second-highest total in a single year.

But this time, Lee specifically noted that he chose not to shorten any sentences — known as commutations — in his annual announcement of clemency actions around Christmas. He tried to distance his approach from Biden’s, saying that the people he pardoned in Tennessee had served their sentences and rejoined their communities, and that all had received a recommendation from the State Board of Parole . Lee has issued seven lump sums since taking office in 2019.

Last week, Biden continued the sentences of about 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and pardoned 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes, marking the largest single-day clemency in modern history. Some of the clemency actions drew traction community response. The clemency push followed a broad pardon for Hunter, the Democrat’s sonwho has been convicted of federal crimes, gun crimes and tax crimes.

“These are very different individuals than many of the individuals whose sentences were commuted in the previous federal pardons,” Lee told reporters.

In Tennessee, a pardon serves as a statement of forgiveness for someone who has served their prison sentence and is no longer in prison, while commutation shortens a sentence but leaves the conviction in place. Lee has granted only one waiver during his time in office, in which the governor declares that the applicant did not commit the crime. Other governors are the same issuing acts of clemency around the holidays.

Newly elected President Donald Trump, who supports Lee, has also put clemency measures under scrutiny – through a a group of well-connected people in his first term, and promised to start his next government with it forgiveness for people who were arrested for their role in the riots at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The governor’s office said none of the people he pardoned Friday had an active criminal sentence of at least five years, including probation or parole.

“They have been out, but they have also shown a compelling reason and interest in seeking a pardon and have demonstrated exemplary citizenship,” Lee said.

Lee highlighted several cases, including that of Lanesha Faye Brown. Lee said Brown was convicted of attempted manslaughter in 1998 at age 13 after she was bullied at school and in one circumstance tried to retaliate with a small knife for an art class project when a bully attacked her. He said she has now been married for 15 years, has an associate’s degree and has worked at a hotel in Nashville. She was once fired for a background check, but her hotel colleagues and manager rallied to rehire her, Lee said.

The clemency actions follow an election cycle in which Republicans leaned nationally on tough-on-crime messaging, which has also been a focus for the Tennessee Legislature in recent years. Lee, meanwhile, was elected governor in 2018 on a message that included criminal justice reform priorities. He has said that clemency decisions and criminal justice reform are unrelated.

Last yearLee approved 22 pardons and commuted the sentence of one person. He granted thirteen pardons and three commutations in 2022And in 2021 he pardoned thirteen people, signed three commutations and acquitted one person.

Lee’s predecessor, former Republican Governor Bill Haslam, granted nine commutations, 35 pardons and one exoneration during eight years in office.