AMNA NAWAZ: It is a unique power of a president, and it often draws criticism.
The ability to pardon criminals can be politically motivated.
As Michael Schiller from Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting lays out here,
pardons can also change lives.
MAN: The battle of Indiana, undefeated Charles "Duke" Tanner.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Charles "Duke" Tanner started out in Gary,
Indiana's youth boxing and Golden Gloves. He turned pro at 18 and was undefeated in the ring.
Tanner was on track to be a cruiserweight title contender, before it all came crashing down.
It's been 16 years since his last fight, and he spent most of that time in federal prison.
OPERATOR: This is call from:
CHARLES "DUKE" TANNER, Former Professional Boxer: Charles Tanner.
OPERATOR: An inmate at a federal prison.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Hey, Duke, how are you?
CHARLES "DUKE" TANNER: Oh, man, another blessed day, man, another day closer to coming home.
MICHAEL SCHILLER:
In 2019, he called me from Allenwood correctional facility in Pennsylvania.
He had already served 14 years for his first offense, a nonviolent drug trafficking charge.
CHARLES "DUKE" TANNER: I was found guilty by a jury of five kilos or more of powdered cocaine.
They gave me a life sentence for it. I had life without parole. My only way home was in a casket.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: There was one other way, a presidential pardon. He submitted
a petition to the pardon attorney's office at the Department of Justice.
CHARLES "DUKE" TANNER: If I could talk to President Trump, just tell him I'm seeking
this clemency based off of change, hope and the possibilities of making America great again.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: There are a lot of people waiting to hear back from
the pardon attorney's office. It has more than 14,000 pending petitions.
AMY POVAH, Founder, CAN-DO Justice Through Clemency: Duke Tanner,
to me, was somebody who stood out head and shoulders above so many cases that I receive.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Amy Povah helped Tanner file his clemency petition.
AMY POVAH: T. for Tanner.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: After serving nine years for a nonviolent drug crime, she got clemency from
President Clinton herself. When she got out, Povah started the CAN-DO Clemency Foundation,
using the knowledge she gathered in the prison law library.
AMY POVAH: I don't think we need to be putting first offenders in prison for life for nonviolent
drug offenses. And he had so many accomplishments at a very young age that defined who I felt
his character was. He was probably at the very top of our list of worthy clemency candidates.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: What were some of the things you were up against?
AMY POVAH: The Office of the Pardon Attorney is -- resides inside the Department of Justice.
And our experience is that very few prosecutors who put people in prison
are inclined to want to release them.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: She says this conflict of interest has broken the system.
AMY POVAH: It's kind of a very unfair, biased process where some of the best candidates
don't make it to the White House and, frankly, some questionable ones do.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Sam Morison worked in the Pardon Attorney's Office for 13 years.
It decides whether to recommend for or against clemency to the president.
SAM MORISON, Former Attorney, Pardon Attorney's Office: They don't review these looking for
good cases to recommend. They look -- they review them looking for a reason to say no.
So, there are vanishingly few favorable recommendations in a commutation case.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: A commutation gets you out of prison. A pardon restores your civil rights.
Both are forms of presidential clemency. President Obama gave more than 1,700 commutations
and 212 pardons, primarily to nonviolent drug offenders.
It was the most presidential clemencies in decades.
SAM MORISON: That's a pretty good number. That's a lot. I grant you that. But if you compare it
to the size of the federal prison population, it actually isn't all that historically significant.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Morison is in private practice now, submitting petitions to
the Pardon Attorney's Office. He says the challenges are made worse by its secrecy.
SAM MORISON: They won't talk to applicants or their attorneys. They won't share
the government's views on a case with an applicant or his attorney.
That allows them to pretty much say whatever they want in one of these
recommendations without any oversight at all.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Many of president's Trump's clemencies have gone to friends
and political allies who never applied through the Pardon Attorney's Office in the first place.
That's what made Tanner's case so surprising.
CHARLES "DUKE" TANNER: My case manager came with the officer
and they stopped by my cell. So, they are like: "Hey, Tanner, we need to talk to you."
And he said: "You got to go home. You know, the president signed off on you. We got to
get you off the complex. He signed off on you to get out of here three hours ago."
MICHAEL SCHILLER: A little over a year after our first conversation, on October 21,
President Trump signed Tanner's clemency warrant. He walked out of prison that same day.
CHARLES "DUKE" TANNER: Man, I won't lie. To be honest,
it really didn't hit me until I saw my son the following day that I was free.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: He knows how lucky he is to have a second chance.
CHARLES "DUKE" TANNER: That embracement and that chance, that second chance to be with my son,
I don't think nothing in the world is going to -- in my life is going to ever top that.
I can go win the heavyweight or whatever
world title tomorrow or get a billion dollars, and I will not feel better than I felt that day.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: So why Duke Tanner? The Pardon Attorney's Office declined to comment.
We know he was one of five nonviolent offenders serving long sentences who were released that day.
It was less than two weeks before the election. This video of Tanner
reuniting with his son was used in a campaign ad for President Trump.
CHARLES "DUKE" TANNER: Thank you, President Trump.
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. All praise and glory go to God.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Now Tanner is home in Indiana.
This was his first time back at the gym where he started his career.
CHARLES "DUKE" TANNER: I started training. I started training Monday with my son
and started on my diet and whatnot, so I can really hit the gym and start getting it going.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: According to an ACLU study,
Black men are 20 times more likely to get life without parole for nonviolent crimes than whites.
Former federal prosecutor Mark Osler thinks clemency is the way to reverse
unfair prison sentences from the war on drugs.
MARK OSLER, Former Federal Prosecutor: Clemency has to be part of the measures that we take
to address mass incarceration. Our clemency system is broken, and it needs to be fixed.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: What's the danger of not having a functioning pardon system?
MARK OSLER: The problem with not having clemency work is that things come out of balance.
It has to embrace justice and mercy. We need both. And clemency is the vehicle for mercy.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Osler sees an opportunity for president-elect Joe Biden.
MARK OSLER: There is a simple fix for clemency. The problem is the evaluation process.
And we need to have a clemency board that would
review the cases to make recommendations directly to the president.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Sam Morison agrees.
SAM MORISON: What I would recommend that President Biden do
is that you take something very much like the Pardon Office and reconstitute it somewhere else.
I actually agree that prosecutors
should have a voice in the process. They just shouldn't be the only voice.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Tanner is grateful to all the people that helped him beat the odds.
MAN: And we celebrate, God, you bringing your son home.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: He is working to convert this baseball stadium in Gary,
Indiana, into a pop-up boxing ring
for his return to pro sports next fall. He's got the support of state Senator Eddie Melton.
STATE SEN. EDDIE MELTON (D-IN): What could a major fight do for Gary?
CHARLES "DUKE" TANNER: What better places to come and show that we can give it back?
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Tanner went from a cell in a federal prison to a White House Christmas party
in a matter of weeks. His plea to the president? Use your power to let more people out of prison.
CHARLES "DUKE" TANNER: And we need to come together as a collective
to work on bringing more men and women home to their families.
MICHAEL SCHILLER: Tanner is fortunate enough to be one of
the people that President Trump has granted clemency to so far.
With little time left in the White House, there are still 14,282 petitions pending.
For "PBS NewsHour" and Reveal, this is Michael Schiller.