STATEMENT ON THE FIRING OF ELIZABETH OYER, U.S. PARDON ATTORNEY

LOS ANGELES, March 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls regrets that Elizabeth Oyer is no longer the U.S. Pardon Attorney. We thank her for her exemplary service. In three years, Ms. Oyer achieved reforms people did not think possible. She reduced the mind-boggling 18,000 application backlog to 3,000 while new applications continued to pour in. She revamped the application forms to make them user-friendly. She made it possible for people to explain extenuating circumstances such as domestic abuse or drug addiction when discussing their transgressions. She traveled to prisons to meet with incarcerated people and had an open-door policy for advocates. Her record of service is extraordinary.

The Biden Administration largely ignored Ms. Oyer's efforts. Instead, it manipulated the commutation system by reducing sentences in broad categories rather than allowing people to go home and claiming that the Administration had issued more clemencies than any other. While any incarcerated person would welcome a shorter sentence, one woman received a reduction from 292 months to 280, or one year off a sentence of over 24 years. Her case was typical. Incarcerated people and their families deserve an honest pardon system that gives a second chance when deserved, not the statistical manipulation that the Biden Administration used to distort its actual record.

The future of clemency during the Trump Administration is uncertain. A formerly incarcerated woman, Alice Marie Johnson, has been named "Pardon Czar." However, it's not transparent what influence that position holds or how it will be executed. If Alice Marie Johnson is genuinely committed to identifying individuals for clemency; those who are elderly, seriously ill, victims of domestic or sexual violence, or long-serving prisoners-and if Ms. Oyer and Ms. Johnson had been able to combine their expertise in partnership fully-President Trump could have restored clemency to its intended purpose: serving as the failsafe of justice.

President Trump's decision to fire Ms. Oyer because she wouldn't follow an order to give Mel Gibson his gun rights back without being vetted shows that the President only cares about benefitting himself and his friends. Our wait for a fair clemency system continues.

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SOURCE The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls