Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Obama Clemency Grants Pick Up Steam

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:September 18, 2016
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Federal Criminal Law & Process Federal Sentencing Marquette Law School President & Executive Branch Prisoner Rights Public Race & Law

Somewhat lost amidst the wall-to-wall media coverage of the Clinton and Trump campaigns, President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 111 federal prisoners on August 30. This builds on what has quietly become one of Obama’s most significant end-of-term domestic policy initiatives. He has now commuted 673 sentences, more than the previous ten presidents combined. The August 30 grants, however, had special significance for me and a small group of recent Marquette Law School graduates.

Commutation (that is, a reduction in the severity of a criminal sentence) is a form of executive clemency. The Constitution expressly grants clemency powers, and presidents since George Washington have used these powers in a variety of different ways. In recent decades, though, there has been a certain whiff of disrepute surrounding clemency. Reinforcing the negative perceptions, President Bill Clinton’s pardon of financier Marc Rich and President George W. Bush’s commutation of the sentence of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby seemed to confirm that clemency was mostly used to benefit wealthy, powerful defendants.

The Obama Administration, however, envisioned a very different way to use clemency.

Marquette Law School Poll Reveals Public Perceptions Of Water-Related Issues

Post author:John Johnson
Post published:September 16, 2016
Post category:Environmental Law Marquette Law School Poll Public Water Law

Public perceptions of environmental risk have long been controversial when used as a tool to help set public policy. Many scholars have argued that there is a fundamental “mismatch”[1] between “notoriously inaccurate”[2] public perceptions of the magnitude and sources of environmental risks, as compared with expert analyses of the same. Even if that is true, public perceptions would be worth measuring for other reasons: for example, studies have confirmed that “federal environmental laws reflect public perceptions of risks more than they do scientific understanding.”[3] And just this year, a gathering of environmental law scholars discussing the future of environmental law stressed the increasing ethical obligation to consider (often marginalized) community voices, turning environmental law into “a tool for collaboration and connection . . . rather than conflict.” In short, perhaps “public perceptions of environmental risk deserve more credit than comparative risk analysts admit.”[4]

Despite a general sense of “increasing public concerns about issues of water quality and the health of riparian environments,”[5] surprisingly few efforts have been made to quantify the level of public disquiet over these problems. To help fill that gap in Wisconsin, two surveys were conducted in August 2016 by the Marquette Law School Poll, and find significant levels of concern over water quality and policy generally. However, most Wisconsin voters reported lower levels of worry regarding their personal sources of drinking water.

Interest in Water Quality

Recent reporting has highlighted drinking water concerns across the state—including lead levels,[6] agriculture-related bacterial contamination,[7] and a failed legislative effort to ease municipal water system privatization.[8] Our survey results indicate that not only journalists are taking an interest in these topics. Seventy-eight percent of respondents reported hearing at least some about the lead crisis in the Flint, Michigan water supply. When asked about the safety of the water supply in Wisconsin’s own low income communities, 68% were very or somewhat concerned, 17% not too concerned, and just 13% not at all concerned. However, when asked about the safety of the water supply in their own community, respondents were more confident. A combined 56% were either not too concerned or not at all concerned, with another 44% being very or somewhat concerned.

Expert Describes Rural Resentment: Power, Control, and When People Take Showers

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:September 14, 2016
Post category:Public Speakers at Marquette

Over five years and in more than two dozen communities across Wisconsin, Katherine Cramer went to places where people gather – diners, gas stations, wherever – and asked people to talk to her about their big concerns. Many of them welcomed the chance to be heard.

And a key theme of what they told her in rural areas was their resentment — that they were on the short end of things, that their opinions don’t count “down there” in Madison and Milwaukee where powerful people make decisions. “We don’t get our fair share,” and government was not serving their interests. That was what Cramer heard from many people.

The result of her extensive listening tour was a book published this year by the University of Chicago Press, titled Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker.

Cramer, a professor of political science and director of the Morgridge Center for Public Service at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, described what she heard and learned at an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program Wednesday at Marquette Law School.