Demonstration at White House, September 2023   ( File photo )

Washington, December 12 (RHC)-- U.S. President Joe Biden has announced he is commuting the sentences of some 1,500 people and pardoning another 39, in what the White House says is the largest single-day act of presidential clemency. 

The commutations will affect people who were transferred from prison to home confinement during the pandemic.  The pardons involve nonviolent crimes, including drug offenses. 

Advocates are pressing Biden to commute federal death sentences before leaving office, as well as pardon or grant clemency to high-profile figures facing political persecution, including Leonard Peltier, human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, Assata Shakur and Edward Snowden.

[ SOURCE: DEMOCRACY NOW ]