By Morgan Whitley | Fox 31 News
President Joe Biden is commuting 1,500 sentences and pardoning 39 Americans, including a Colorado man, in what is now the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.
A White House lawyer said the people who were pardoned by Biden were convicted of nonviolent crimes, such as drug offenses, and turned their lives around.
A president has the power to both pardon, in which a person is relieved of guilt and punishment, or commute a sentence, which reduces or eliminates the punishment but doesn’t exonerate the wrongdoing. It’s customary for a president to grant mercy at the end of his term, using the power of the office to wipe away records or end prison terms.