Senate Democrats blocked Sen. Tom Cotton's (R., Ark.) resolution Thursday to condemn President Joe Biden’s decision to grant clemency to a former Pennsylvania judge who sent juveniles to prison in exchange for millions of dollars of kickbacks.
Cotton proposed the resolution regarding Biden’s reprieve for Michael Conahan, who was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison in what’s known as the "Kids for Cash" scandal. Cotton also cited a series of controversial commutations uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon—including for the "Black Widow," who admitted to murdering three lovers for insurance money, a drug lord whose operation was linked to numerous overdose deaths, and a cancer doctor who diluted chemotherapy drugs as part of a Medicare scam.
"The cruelty of these commutations is only matched by the shameless incompetence of the administration that issued them," Cotton said in a Senate floor speech.
But Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) objected to Cotton’s measure, while defending Biden and the prisoners he has now sprung from jail.
"President Biden’s commutations directed at a group of individuals who’ve demonstrated a commitment to rehabilitation are far more defensible than President Trump’s use of pardon power during his first term," said Durbin, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 convicts in what the White House touted as the "largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history." The White House said the commutations were given to "nonviolent" offenders who had been released to home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic.
But Biden freed at least one murderer and multiple drug dealers linked to overdose deaths. Biden commuted the 40-year prison sentence of Josephine Gray, known as the "Black Widow" for murdering two husbands and a boyfriend to collect on their life insurance policies. A federal prosecutor who handled the case told the Free Beacon he was "pissed off" by Biden’s commutation.
Biden commuted the 15-year prison sentence for Wendy Hechtman, who manufactured a drug that the federal government has called the "most potent fentanyl analog detected in the United States." The police detective who took Hechtman down said his investigation "now feels wasted" after the commutation.
The Conahan commutation has generated the largest public outcry. Gov. Josh Shapiro said he felt "strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania" by freeing Conahan, who took $2.1 million in kickbacks from for-profit prison executives in exchange for sending thousands of juvenile offenders to their prisons. The mother of one victim lashed out at Biden for freeing Conahan, whom she blames for her son’s suicide.