Dozens of Georgians are part of the largest act of clemency in a single day in modern presidential history.
President Joe Biden announced on Dec. 12 that he was commuting the sentences of some 1,500 people, leaving their guilty verdict intact but reducing some or all of their punishment. Seventy-one are from Georgia.
According to the White House, most of those whose sentences are being commuted committed non-violent drug offenses in their late teens and early 20s. Many served in the U.S. military and all are active in their communities, either through church or volunteer work.
In the meantime, Biden also pardoned 39 people, which wiped away their convictions.
None of those pardoned are from Georgia in this most recent wave, but Dexter Jackson, a real estate broker in Athens, received one of Biden’s first three pardons of his term in 2022 and understands the significance of the moment.
“Trouble is easy to get into but very hard to get out of,” he said during a brief phone call.
For Jackson, the pardon came two decades after he was convicted for delivering a phone message that facilitated the distribution of marijuana.
“My only crime was delivering a message and that message caused me to have a felony on my record, but I always knew deep down inside I was going to get a pardon,” Jackson said. “I never had a doubt.”
It took approximately two years to get approved, and Jackson said he had to hire a lawyer and fill out a thick application with letters of recommendation from people in his community, police officers and even the judge that sentenced him to prison.
Jackson said the pardon restored his rights, but, most importantly, his dignity.
“[It also] made it easier when I applied for my broker’s license, and some applications at banks and stuff, that is a question if it’s not a bank that you customarily deal with, they will ask you those questions,” Jackson said. “It’s just like a burden has been lifted off of me.”
Jackson said he’ll always remember receiving the call.
“It was a normal day,” Jackson said. “[But I started getting] call after call. Call after call. Call after call. Then I saw one particular friend call. He said, ‘Hey Dexter, have you seen the news? Man, you got chosen. You received a pardon.’ He’s a jokester, so I just hung up and kept driving. … When the lady from FOX 5 called, I knew it was true when she called.”
Jackson frequently shares his story at schools in the Athens area. But, it’s not necessarily unique.
“An action like this, we are in need of it arguably more than anyone in the country,” Georgia Justice Project Policy Director Wade Askew said.
He added that clemency, especially commutations, have a big impact in Georgia because the state has the longest probation sentences in the country.
“There’s a massive population of folks who are successfully living in our communities and had they been living in any other state in the country they very likely would be done already with their sentence,” Askew said.
Opponents of capital punishment, like the group Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, are still lobbying Biden to take two Georgia prisoners and dozens of others nationwide off federal death row before he leaves office.
That’s because President-elect Donald Trump has said he plans to expand the death penalty. During his first term, he oversaw the executions of 13 federal inmates — the most under any president in a century.
Currently, there are 40 inmates on federal death row, including Anthony George Battle and Meier Jason Brown from Georgia. Battle has been on death row for nearly three decades and Brown for two decades. Both are convicted of murder.
