Presidential Pardons, Clemency & Commutation Explained

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

Executive clemency is the constitutional power of mercy. It allows the President to pardon a federal offense, to commute a federal sentence, and to grant other forms of relief from the consequences of a federal conviction. For a person living with a federal conviction — or serving a federal sentence — clemency can be a path to relief that no court can provide.

At Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C., clemency is part of a nationwide post-conviction and sentence-relief practice. Our principal attorney, Elizabeth Franklin-Best, has handled more than 330 federal proceedings — over 100 of them appeals — and has appeared in all twelve federal courts of appeals and at the U.S. Supreme Court at the certiorari stage. Best Lawyers in America names her a 2026 “Best Lawyer” in Appellate Practice, and Chambers USA gives her a 2026 ranking in Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations. Managing Director Christopher Zoukis, a non-attorney, is a recognized authority on the federal prison system, and the firm’s record in resentencing, capital mitigation, and post-conviction litigation maps directly onto the documentary, rehabilitation-focused work a clemency petition demands. The clemency power flows from Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, and the petition process is governed by Department of Justice regulations.

This hub explains executive clemency — what it is, its constitutional source, the forms it takes, why it reaches only federal offenses, the role of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, and how the petition process works. It also explains how clemency differs from a pardon’s effect on a record, from the restoration of civil rights, and from the relief a court can grant. If you are considering seeking clemency, this hub explains the landscape, and a paid consultation with a clemency lawyer is the place to start.

Quick Answer

Question	Answer
What is executive clemency?	The President’s constitutional power to grant relief from the punishment or consequences of a federal crime — including pardons and commutations.
Where does the clemency power come from?	Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which is plenary and cannot be modified by Congress or the courts.
What forms does clemency take?	A pardon, a commutation of sentence, a reprieve, and the remission of fines or restitution.
Does clemency reach state convictions?	No. The President’s clemency power reaches only federal offenses. State convictions are addressed by state clemency processes.
Who reviews clemency petitions?	Modern petitions are generally channeled through the Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney.
How do we help?	Through a paid, one-hour initial consultation that identifies the right form of clemency for your situation and maps the petition strategy.

Key Takeaways

• Executive clemency is the President’s constitutional power to grant relief from a federal conviction or sentence.
• The power comes from Article II, Section 2, and is plenary — Congress or the courts cannot modify it.
• A denial of clemency is essentially unreviewable; clemency is an act of executive grace, not a legal appeal.
• Clemency takes several forms — pardon, commutation, reprieve, and remission of financial penalties.
• A commutation reduces a sentence being served; a pardon is generally sought after a sentence is completed.
• The clemency power applies only to federal offenses, not to state convictions.
• Modern clemency petitions are generally channeled through the Office of the Pardon Attorney.
• Clemency is distinct from court relief — it does not argue legal error, it asks for mercy.

What Is Executive Clemency?

Executive clemency is the power of the President to grant relief from the punishment or consequences of a federal crime. It is sometimes called the “prerogative of mercy” — a recognition that there are cases where strict application of the criminal law should yield to forgiveness, fairness, or compassion.

Clemency is not a single act. It is an umbrella term that covers several distinct forms of relief — a full pardon, a commutation of sentence, a reprieve, and the remission of fines and restitution. Each does something different, and which form fits a person’s situation depends on what they are seeking and where they are in the life of their case.

What unites the forms of clemency is that they come from the executive branch, not the courts. Clemency is a fundamentally different kind of relief from an appeal or a post-conviction motion. It is not based on a legal error in the case; it is an act of executive grace. That distinction shapes everything about how clemency is sought.

The Constitutional Power

The clemency power is written directly into the Constitution. Article II, Section 2 provides that the President “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

The courts have long described this power in sweeping terms. In Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. 333 (1867), the Supreme Court called the power unlimited apart from the impeachment exception: it extends to every federal offense and may be exercised at any time after the offense is committed — before charges are filed, while proceedings are pending, or after conviction and judgment. The power flows from the Constitution alone, and Garland makes clear that Congress can neither limit a pardon’s effect nor exclude any class of offenders from its reach.

The Supreme Court reinforced that view in Schick v. Reed, 419 U.S. 256 (1974), which held that the pardoning power “flows from the Constitution alone, not from any legislative enactments,” and “cannot be modified, abridged, or diminished by the Congress.” Schick also confirmed the breadth of the power in a way that matters in practice: the President may attach conditions to a pardon or commutation — there, commuting a death sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole — so long as the condition does not itself offend the Constitution. Clemency is therefore flexible. It is not an all-or-nothing choice between full forgiveness and nothing at all; it can be tailored, which is one reason the form and framing of a petition deserve careful thought.

One consequence of this constitutional breadth is that the President’s decision to grant or deny clemency is, itself, essentially unreviewable. In Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, 523 U.S. 272 (1998), the Supreme Court reaffirmed that pardon and commutation decisions are rarely, if ever, appropriate subjects for judicial review. There is no appeal from a denial of clemency — which is why a petition must be approached not as a legal appeal but as a persuasive case made to the executive branch.

The Forms of Clemency

Executive clemency takes several forms, and understanding the differences is essential to seeking the right one.

• Pardon. A pardon is an act of forgiveness for a federal offense. It is typically sought after a sentence has been completed, and it can restore certain rights and remove certain disabilities that follow a conviction.
• Commutation. A commutation reduces a sentence that is currently being served — for example, shortening a term of imprisonment. It is a form of clemency for a person still in custody.
• Reprieve. A reprieve postpones a punishment. It is a temporary measure rather than a permanent reduction.
• Remission. Clemency can also remit — that is, reduce or cancel — financial penalties, such as fines or restitution obligations.

The two forms that matter most in practice are the pardon and the commutation. They serve people at different stages: a commutation is for someone serving a sentence who seeks a reduction, while a pardon is generally for someone who has completed a sentence and seeks forgiveness and the restoration of rights. Identifying which form fits is the first step in any clemency matter.

The two forms also operate differently as a matter of law. A commutation takes effect by the executive’s decision and does not depend on the recipient’s agreement: in Biddle v. Perovich, 274 U.S. 480 (1927), the Supreme Court held that the President could commute a death sentence to life imprisonment without the prisoner’s consent, explaining that “a pardon in our days is not a private act of grace from an individual happening to possess power” but “a part of the Constitutional scheme,” driven by the public welfare rather than the prisoner’s wishes. A pardon, by contrast, must be accepted to take effect — a distinction addressed below.

Applied Insight: The most common confusion in clemency is between a pardon and a commutation. They are not interchangeable. A person still in prison who wants out is seeking a commutation; a person who finished a sentence years ago and wants their record forgiven and rights restored is seeking a pardon. Asking for the wrong form is a basic but consequential error.

What a Pardon Does — and Does Not Do

A full pardon forgives the offense and lifts the penalties and disabilities that flow from it, but it does not rewrite history. Despite the sweeping language of the nineteenth-century cases, the modern understanding is that a pardon does not erase or expunge the conviction: the judgment remains on the record, and a pardoned person who is asked about the conviction must still disclose it — along with the fact that it was pardoned. Anyone whose goal is a clean record rather than forgiveness is really asking about expungement or record sealing, which work differently from a pardon and are governed by separate law.

What a pardon does deliver is substantial. Under 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20), a conviction for which a person has been pardoned is not treated as a conviction for purposes of the federal felon-in-possession ban — so a full and unconditional presidential pardon generally restores federal firearm rights, unless the pardon itself expressly withholds them. A pardon also restores eligibility for federal jury service, can restore the right to hold federal office, strengthens applications for professional licenses and security clearances, and carries the weight of official forgiveness in employment and reputational settings. The precise rights a pardon restores depend on the conviction and on the law of the jurisdiction where each right is exercised.

One more feature of pardons surprises people: they can be declined. In Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915), the Supreme Court held that a pardon must be accepted to take effect and may be rejected by the person to whom it is offered — observing that a pardon carries an imputation of guilt, and acceptance a confession of it. A pardon is mercy, not vindication; a person who maintains innocence and wants the conviction undone is looking for court relief, not clemency.

A pardon’s limits extend to money and collateral matters as well. Because a pardon removes punishment rather than undoing the judgment, courts have held that a pardon does not, on its own, refund fines or restitution a person has already paid, and it does not extinguish a related civil tax liability arising from the same conduct. A pardon also leaves untouched any rights or property that have already vested in third parties as a consequence of the judgment. These are reasons to be precise about what a given grant of clemency is expected to accomplish — and to confirm those expectations before relying on them.

Clemency Reaches Federal Offenses Only

One limit on the President’s clemency power is fundamental and frequently misunderstood: it reaches only federal offenses.

The constitutional text says it directly — the power is to pardon “Offences against the United States.” A presidential pardon or commutation can address a federal conviction or a federal sentence. It cannot touch a state conviction. Relief from a state conviction is a matter for that state’s clemency process, typically handled by the state’s governor or a state board.

For a person seeking clemency, this means the first question is always jurisdictional: is the conviction federal or state? Our federal criminal defense practice addresses federal clemency — presidential pardons and commutations for federal offenses. A person with a state conviction would need to review the state’s clemency process for that state.

The Office of the Pardon Attorney

While the clemency power belongs to the President alone, modern Presidents have generally channeled clemency requests through a defined process within the Department of Justice, centered on the Office of the Pardon Attorney.

The Office of the Pardon Attorney receives clemency petitions, reviews them, conducts investigations, and prepares recommendations that move through the Department of Justice to the President. The process is governed by Department of Justice regulations that set out how petitions are submitted, what they should contain, and the general standards that apply. Under 28 C.F.R. § 1.2, a pardon petition should generally wait until at least five years after release from confinement — or five years after the conviction, where no prison term was imposed — and petitions are generally not submitted while a person remains on probation, parole, or supervised release. A clemency petition is, in the ordinary course, submitted through this process.

It is important to keep two things in mind. First, the regulations and the Office of the Pardon Attorney provide the usual channel, but they do not constrain the President’s constitutional power — the President can act outside the ordinary process. Second, because the ordinary process is where most petitions are evaluated, a petition that is prepared to succeed within that process — thorough, well-documented, and persuasive — is far more likely to advance. We explain how a petition is assembled, documented, and presented during the paid initial consultation.

Clemency in 2025 and 2026: The Current Landscape

Every administration shapes clemency practice in its own way, and the current period has been an unusually active one. On January 20, 2025, the President issued a proclamation granting pardons and commutations to defendants convicted of offenses relating to the events at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. Since then, batches of individual pardons and commutations have issued regularly through 2025 and into 2026, and the Office of the Pardon Attorney’s published grant lists include numerous white-collar matters — fraud, bribery, securities, and money-laundering convictions among them.

Two features of the current landscape matter for anyone weighing a petition. First, recent grants have repeatedly reached financial-crime convictions, including sentences imposed only months earlier — a reminder that the traditional waiting-period expectations are guidance for the Department of Justice’s review, not limits on the President’s constitutional power. Second, the formal petition process remains the durable, institutional channel: administrations change, and a petition built to succeed on its merits — documented rehabilitation, a complete record, a persuasive narrative — retains its value no matter who occupies the White House.

We track clemency practice as it develops, because timing and presentation decisions should reflect how clemency is actually being granted now — not how it worked a decade ago. What does not change is the foundation: an honest, thorough, well-supported petition.

Clemency vs. Relief From the Courts

Clemency is one route to relief from a federal conviction or sentence, but it is fundamentally different from the relief the courts can provide, and the two should not be confused.

A direct appeal and post-conviction motions are legal proceedings. They argue that something went wrong — a legal error, a constitutional violation — and they ask a court to correct it. Clemency makes no such argument. It does not claim the conviction was wrong. It asks the executive branch, as a matter of grace and judgment, for forgiveness or a reduction.

This difference has practical consequences. Court relief is governed by deadlines, rules, and legal standards; clemency is governed by executive discretion. Court relief can be appealed; clemency cannot. The two are not mutually exclusive — and a complete assessment of a person’s situation considers both — but they are distinct paths, and choosing where to focus depends on the facts of the case.

One judicial route deserves special mention because it is often confused with clemency: compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). Like a commutation, it can shorten a sentence a person is serving — but it is a motion decided by the sentencing court, not an act of executive grace, and it turns on “extraordinary and compelling reasons” rather than on mercy. In Rutherford v. United States (2026), the Supreme Court narrowed that avenue, holding that nonretroactive changes in the law are not, by themselves, extraordinary and compelling reasons for a reduction. For someone in custody, comparing a commutation petition against a compassionate-release motion is often part of mapping the path forward.

Clemency Topics We Cover

Federal clemency is a distinct field. Our practice covers each major topic in it:

• Presidential Pardons — what a federal pardon is, what it does, and how one is sought.
• Commutation of Sentence — reducing a sentence currently being served.
• The Clemency Petition Process — how a petition moves through the Office of the Pardon Attorney.
• Clemency Eligibility & Waiting Periods — who can apply and the waiting periods involved.
• Restoration of Rights After a Pardon — what rights a pardon can restore.
• Pardon vs. Expungement vs. Record Sealing — how a pardon differs from clearing a record.

Why Work With Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C.?

A clemency petition is a persuasive case about a person’s whole life — the offense, the time since, the rehabilitation, the contributions, the reasons mercy is warranted. Building that case is close cousin to the mitigation and post-conviction work the firm has done for years. Our principal attorney, Elizabeth Franklin-Best, served as counsel in Aiken v. Byars, 410 S.C. 534 (2014), the landmark decision requiring individualized resentencing for juveniles sentenced to life, and has handled capital habeas and sentencing-mitigation matters such as Morva v. Zook, 821 F.3d 517 (4th Cir. 2016), and Bennett v. Stirling, 170 F. Supp. 3d 851 (D.S.C. 2016). That experience — marshaling a person’s full history into a compelling case for mercy — is precisely what a strong clemency petition requires. Past results do not guarantee any future outcome, but they reflect the kind of work clemency demands.

The firm pairs that record with a working knowledge of how sentences are actually served. Christopher Zoukis, our Managing Director and a non-attorney, is a recognized authority on the federal prison system, with particular insight into the institutional records and rehabilitation evidence that anchor a commutation petition. Across more than 330 federal proceedings — including over 100 appeals and active First Step Act resentencing, Amendment 821, and compassionate-release litigation — Elizabeth Franklin-Best has built the documentary discipline a clemency matter rewards. We identify the right form of clemency, assess eligibility and timing, assemble the record, and prepare a thorough, persuasive petition designed to succeed within the Office of the Pardon Attorney process, for people seeking clemency for federal offenses nationwide.

Talk With a Clemency Lawyer

Executive clemency is a unique form of relief — a constitutional power of mercy that can reach where the courts cannot. Whether the right form is a pardon or a commutation, and how to present a compelling petition, are questions that reward experienced guidance.

Clemency consultations with our team are paid, one-hour engagements — time we use to review the conviction and sentence, determine whether a pardon or a commutation fits your circumstances, and sketch the petition strategy we would pursue. If federal clemency may be part of your path forward, schedule your consultation today.