President for a Day: Who do you pardon---and you only get one choice?

Politics & Elections
1

My choice is one I’m not comfortable with but would possibly remove a divisive issue in the Philadelphia community: Mumia Abdul Jamal.

In 1982 he was convicted of murdering Philadelphia officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death. Over the decades, his proponents have said he was set up. Faulkner supporters including his widow have vigorously worked tooth and nail to make sure Jamal stays in jail.

As a President with One Pardon, he is 66, been in prison for 38 years, and think releasing him from prison would reinvigorate a dialogue about what happened all those years ago. I’m not 100% concerned he is innocent, and while not a comfort to the family of Daniel Faulkner, this would be the removal of an internationally recognized black mark for Philadelphia’s notoriously racist crime and justice system.

That’s my one Pardon. Who ya got? And remember, YOU ONLY GET ONE!

2

Edward Snowden

3

Since the two of you snagged my first and second choices, I’ll go with Chelsea Manning.

4

My answer is technically invalid since this is a Texas state inmate and not federal inmate, but I would want to pardon the inmate that I write letters to in prison ministry. He is as genuinely reformed as an inmate could ever be but unfortunately has decades left to go in his sentence.