Giants' Tynes Seeks Pardon for Brother
Presidential pardon sought for marijuana trafficking conviction.
Dec. 7, 2008 -- This year was a big one for New York Giants kicker Lawrence Tynes.
He made an historic field goal that won the Giants a ticket to the Super Bowl. A Super Bowl they went on to win. The victory got him a visit to the White House with the rest of his teammembers.
He still remembers the moment clearly, "He shook my hand and said congratulations."
Now almost a year later, Tynes is asking for something much bigger from the president -- his brother's early release from prison.
"I think I'm doing this because I do love my brother, I care about him… I'd love to spend some time with him outside of prison walls."
In 2004, Mark Tynes was convicted for trafficking marijuana across state lines. His childhood friends, also involved, took plea deals and were released, but Mark was sentenced to 27 years.
Tynes says his brother should do time, but he believes the punishment was disproportionate to the crime.
"We're not making Mark out to be a saint, he's had some previous charges. But the bottom line is you don't take someone whose previous charges were for selling marijuana, and give him 27 years."
Granting clemency is a presidential power enshrined in the Constitution. And presidents use the power to varying degree.
So far President Bush has only granted 171 pardons and 8 sentence commutations in his entire administration. That's the fewest number of granted clemency requests by of any president except his father George H.W. Bush.
Besides the subjectivity of the president, petitioners also have to deal with a tedious pardons process that many say is in disarray.
For starters, there are simply more clemency requests to handle. Since Gerald Ford's famous pardon of Richard Nixon in 1974, the number of clemency requests received by the federal government has increased sixfold.
It can take months to do all the paperwork associated with a clemency request and there's no guarantee it will ever get reviewed. Today, there are roughly 2,000 clemency petitions at the Department of Justice still pending.
