Clemency

Overview

All states and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment have a process for low­er­ing the sen­tence or par­don­ing those fac­ing crim­i­nal charges. Clemency is an espe­cial­ly impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion for those on death row. Even after all legal appeals in the courts have been exhaust­ed, there is still a pos­si­bil­i­ty that a pris­on­er’s life will be spared.

Clemencies in indi­vid­ual cap­i­tal cas­es are rare, but there have been a num­ber of blan­ket grants of clemen­cy by gov­er­nors and one by President Joseph Biden which express con­cern about sys­temic prob­lems and the over­all fair­ness of the death penal­ty. A 2025 study by DPI of indi­vid­ual clemen­cies exam­ined the rea­sons cit­ed when grant­i­ng clemen­cy. Mitigating fac­tors was the most often cit­ed rea­son, in near­ly a third of all cas­es, close­ly fol­lowed by con­cerns about com­par­a­tive cul­pa­bil­i­ty or exces­sive sen­tence, pos­si­ble wrong­ful con­vic­tion, and offi­cial mis­con­duct or unfair legal practices. 

At Issue

Because the pow­er of clemen­cy is vest­ed in the exec­u­tive branch of the gov­ern­ment, courts have been reluc­tant to impose stan­dards on this pro­ce­dure. Governors are elect­ed; thus the process may be high­ly polit­i­cal. For these rea­sons, clemen­cies in death penal­ty cas­es are dif­fi­cult to pre­dict and immune from judicial review.

Grants of Clemency by State

What DPIC Offers

DPIC keeps track of all clemen­cies grant­ed in cap­i­tal cas­es in the mod­ern era by state and year, includ­ing the rea­sons giv­en for the action. It also has com­piled mate­r­i­al on his­tor­i­cal uses of clemen­cy. Finally, DPIC describes the dif­fer­ences among state laws regard­ing who makes the clemen­cy deci­sion and any con­straints on the process.

Although a reprieve is tech­ni­cal­ly a type of clemen­cy, this page dis­cuss­es only exec­u­tive acts with per­ma­nent effects on a defendant’s con­vic­tion or sen­tence. Temporary holds on exe­cu­tions are tracked on our Outcome of Death Warrants pages.