Bush grants pardons to 5 people and commutes 2 sentences

[Freddie Stubbs]

Associated Press


WASHINGTON - President Bush has granted full pardons to five people, including one South Carolina man who died last year, and commuted the sentences of two others, the Justice Department announced.

The man who died, Samuel Wattie Guerry of Kingstree, S.C., had been convicted of food stamp fraud and sentenced in October 1994 to two years' probation and fined $5,000.

A second man from Kingstree, Johnson Heyward Tisdale, was also pardoned for an identical food stamp offense in 1994, according to a Justice Department statement issued Friday.

Other pardons were granted to:

more: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/8725909.htm?ERIGHTS=-7043698017397185361miami

[Spinzonner]

1. What, he didnt resurrect them ?

[MGKrebs]

2. No-need-to-sign-up-link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4117527,00.html

[central scrutinizer]

8. intended double meaning?

Bring back complete sentences as in complete jail sentences = no pardons? Or just a coincidence?

[lanparty]

3. Going out of office pardons ????

Who would Bush Pardon before he left????

* Paul Wolfowitz
* Dick Cheney
* Donald Rumsfeld
* Ken Lay
* Whoever kept the jets on the ground on 9/11
* The guy who disposed of the 9/11 flight controller tape in 200 different garbage cans.
* John Ashcroft.

These guys are stinking and rotten. Our only consolation may be that Bush cannot pardon HIMSELF. I want to see him in Club Fed sometime in 2006.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

4. Food stamp sentence commutation?

There's an angle somewhere.

[Alerter_]

7. two drug dealers pardoned

Looking at the time period, you can only assume a low level Iran-Contra figure.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4117527,00.html

Bush commuted the sentence of Geraldine Gordon, convicted in Las Vegas of a drug distribution charge in 1989 and sentenced to 240 months in prison. Gordon will be released on Sept. 20.

The president also commuted the sentence of Bobby Mac Berry, of Burlington, N.C., who had been sentenced to 108 months in prison in 1997 for marijuana and money laundering convictions. Berry will be released on May 27.

The Justice Department issued no further details about the cases.

[bobbyboucher]

5. Bush doesn't do anything for nothing, there

has to be some kind of political or monetary or future favor benefit for this.

[Ezlivin]

6. Kerry Won't Pardon Bush!

Once Kerry is elected, we won't have to worry about him pardoning Bush.

In fact, much of his first four years will be taken up with commissions, investigations and legal proceedings against most of the scum in the present administration.

We'll have to re-elect Kerry just so he can have four years do to his own work, not just clean up after the other guy.

[0rganism]

9. Disagree: president Kerry would gladly pardon bush for nat'l unity

Assuming bush were indicted, pardoning him would be an olive branch to all the people who voted for bush. Not that it would be an especially effective gesture, but if Kerry allowed a prosecution it would really freak out about half the country.

[Ilsa]

10. Do you think there'd be any way

Kerry could draw most of Bush's younger relatives into the legal proceedings? I'd love to see Kerry get convictions on Jebbie and young George Prescott Bush, just to keep them from standing a chance of running for prez.

[Nordic65]

11. Well, it's late friday...

If these pardons are benign (no kickback involved etc.) why announce them now? If these cases are miscarriage of justice correcting them is the right thing to do, and these days Bush needs any thing done right presented front and center for everybody to see.

It smells...