President Biden has made several promises on clemency. He broke one of those promises by pardoning his son, Hunter Biden, who he claimed had been unjustly charged.

He also pledged to use his clemency powers broadly to address mass incarceration and remedy harsh, unjust sentences. So far, that promise has gone unfulfilled. Biden has granted fewer clemencies than President-elect Donald Trump did in his first term, and fewer clemencies than any other U.S. president since 1900 except for George H.W. Bush.

But it is not too late. Now is the time for Biden to take robust action on clemency. People’s lives depend on it.

Clemency is one of the most powerful tools in a president’s toolkit. With the stroke of a pen, a president can give a convicted person a second chance. There are thousands of deserving clemency candidates in the federal prison system — people who have paid the price for their crimes and no longer pose any safety risk to our communities — who are in danger of being left behind.

As 54 clemency recipients from Republican and Democratic presidents recently wrote in a letter to Biden: “Even in freedom, we never forget that we left a lot of good people behind — people who deserve justice and mercy.”

With so little time left in Biden's presidency, it is important to underscore the stakes of clemency. As a criminal defense attorney with two decades........

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