Commutation of Sentence: Definition, Criteria & How to Secure Relief

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

A commutation of sentence is a reduction of a punishment already imposed, granted by the President as an act of executive grace. It leaves the conviction standing and changes only the penalty — most often by cutting a prison term, converting it to time served, or removing a bar to parole.

That is the whole definition. The harder question, and the one this page is built to answer, is whether a commutation is the right route at all. The Department of Justice’s own regulation says it usually is not: under 28 C.F.R. § 1.3, “No petition for commutation of sentence, including remission of fine, should be filed if other forms of judicial or administrative relief are available, except upon a showing of exceptional circumstances.” Most people serving a federal sentence do have another form of relief available — compassionate release, a § 2255 motion, a § 2241 petition, a retroactive guideline amendment, First Step Act time credits — and those routes are decided by judges and the Bureau of Prisons under written standards, not by one person exercising unreviewable discretion.

This page defines commutation precisely, lays every federal early-release route side by side in one table, and walks the actual procedure a petition follows from a prison unit team to the Office of the Pardon Attorney to the President’s desk.

What a Commutation of Sentence Is

A commutation reduces or substitutes a punishment. It does not touch the finding of guilt. The Supreme Court has described commutation as “the substitution of a lesser type of punishment for the punishment actually imposed at trial” (Schick v. Reed, 419 U.S. 256 (1974)). The Justice Manual says the same thing in operational terms: a commutation “reduces the period of incarceration; it does not imply forgiveness of the underlying offense, but simply remits a portion of the punishment,” and “has no effect upon the underlying conviction” (JM 9-140.113).

So after a commutation:

• The conviction stays. It remains on the record, with every collateral consequence that attaches to a federal felony — immigration exposure, firearm disability, licensing bars, and the rest.
• The sentence changes. The President may commute a term to time served, or to a shorter fixed term, or “reduce a sentence to achieve the inmate’s release after a specified period of time” (JM 9-140.113).
• Conditions may attach. The President has “constitutional power to attach conditions to his commutation of any sentence” (Schick, 419 U.S. at 267), and DOJ policy notes commutation “may be granted upon conditions similar to those imposed pursuant to parole or supervised release or, in the case of an alien, upon condition of deportation” (JM 9-140.113).
• The Bureau of Prisons recomputes the time. If a petition is granted, “Bureau of Prisons staff shall recalculate the inmate’s sentence in accordance with the terms of the commutation order,” and if the commutation grants parole eligibility, the person “is to be placed on the appropriate parole docket” (28 C.F.R. § 571.41(c)).

The term of art you will see used interchangeably in DOJ materials is executive clemency. Clemency is the umbrella; commutation is one of its forms. Our what does clemency mean page covers the umbrella; this page covers the branch.

Where the power comes from

Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution gives the President “Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment” (U.S. Const. art. II, § 2). Commutation is treated as included within that grant. In Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. (4 Wall.) 333 (1867), the Court described the power as “unlimited” except in impeachment cases, exercisable “at any time after [the offense’s] commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment,” and held that “[t]his power of the President is not subject to legislative control[.] Congress can neither limit the effect of his pardon, nor exclude from its exercise any class of offenders” (Ex parte Garland). Schick reaffirmed that the power “flows from the Constitution alone, not from any legislative enactments, and that it cannot be modified, abridged, or diminished by the Congress.”

Two practical consequences follow, and they are the two things most pages on this topic get wrong.

First, there is no eligibility statute. Nothing in the U.S. Code says who qualifies for a commutation. There are DOJ regulations governing how petitions are processed, but 28 C.F.R. § 1.11 states plainly that those rules “are advisory only and for the internal guidance of Department of Justice personnel,” that “[t]hey create no enforceable rights in persons applying for executive clemency,” and that they do not “restrict the authority granted to the President under Article II, section 2 of the Constitution.”

Second, there is no appeal. The Supreme Court reaffirmed in Ohio Adult Parole Authority v. Woodard, 523 U.S. 272 (1998), that “pardon and commutation decisions have not traditionally been the business of courts; as such, they are rarely, if ever, appropriate subjects for judicial review,” and that a clemency request is a “unilateral hope” rather than a protected liberty interest (Woodard). Justice O’Connor, concurring, allowed that “some minimal procedural safeguards apply to clemency proceedings” — judicial intervention might be warranted “in the face of a scheme whereby a state official flipped a coin to determine whether to grant clemency, or in a case where the State arbitrarily denied a prisoner any access to its clemency process.” That is the outer boundary, and it is a very long way from a right to review on the merits.

The Court has also been clear about what clemency is for. In Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390 (1993), it called clemency “deeply rooted in our Anglo-American tradition of law, and … the historic remedy for preventing miscarriages of justice where judicial process has been exhausted,” and described it as “the ‘fail safe’ in our criminal justice system” (Herrera). The operative word is exhausted. Clemency is what remains after the courts are finished — which is exactly why § 1.3 tells you not to file while a court can still act.

Commutation, Pardon, Reprieve, Remission: The Four Forms of Clemency

28 C.F.R. § 1.1 identifies four: “A person seeking executive clemency by pardon, reprieve, commutation of sentence, or remission of fine shall execute a formal petition.”

Form	What it does	Who it is for	Timing rule in the regulations
Commutation of sentence	Reduces or substitutes the punishment; conviction stands	A person serving a federal sentence	No waiting period in the rules, but no petition “should be filed if other forms of judicial or administrative relief are available, except upon a showing of exceptional circumstances” (§ 1.3)
Pardon	Forgiveness of the offense; the conviction remains on the record but the legal disabilities are lifted	A person who has completed the sentence	“No petition for pardon should be filed until the expiration of a waiting period of at least five years after the date of the release of the petitioner from confinement” — or five years after conviction if no prison term was imposed (§ 1.2)
Reprieve	Temporary postponement of a punishment	Most commonly a person under a sentence of death	Governed with commutation of a death sentence by § 1.10
Remission of fine or restitution	Cancels or reduces a financial penalty	A person owing a court-imposed fine or restitution	Same gate as commutation under § 1.3; DOJ weighs “the ability to pay and any good faith efforts to discharge the obligation” (JM 9-140.113)

Two boundaries worth stating flatly. Clemency reaches federal offenses only — “[p]etitions for executive clemency shall relate only to violations of laws of the United States,” and petitions about territorial or possession law go to that territory’s own authorities (28 C.F.R. § 1.4). And military convictions go elsewhere: a clemency petition for a military offense “should [be] submit[ted] … directly to the Secretary of the military department that had original jurisdiction over the court-martial trial and conviction” (§ 1.1).

For the full comparison, see clemency vs. pardon vs. commutation, what is a presidential pardon, and — because this is the question that catches people out — what a pardon does not do and pardon vs. expungement. If firearm rights are the reason you are looking at clemency at all, start with gun rights restoration.

Every Federal Route Out Early, Side by Side

This is the table to read before you decide anything. A commutation petition competes with these routes; it does not sit above them. Under § 1.3 the availability of any of them is a reason not to file for clemency, and DOJ says so explicitly: the possibility that the Department “could accomplish the same result by petitioning the sentencing court” — through Rule 35, a fine-remission motion, or “a request for compassionate reduction in sentence under 18 U.S.C. Section 3582(c)(1)” — “will also bear on the decision whether to recommend Presidential intervention in the form of clemency” (JM 9-140.113).

Relief	Who decides	The standard	Where it is filed	The clock that governs it	What it does to the sentence
Commutation of sentence (28 C.F.R. pt. 1)	The President alone (U.S. Const. art. II, § 2)	No legal standard. DOJ’s stated grounds are “disparity or undue severity of sentence, critical illness or old age, and meritorious service rendered to the government” (JM 9-140.113)	Office of the Pardon Attorney, addressed to the President (§ 1.1); a person in custody files through the warden (28 C.F.R. § 571.41(a))	No deadline to file and no deadline on the President. Internal clocks only: the case manager has 30 calendar days to compile the package (PS 1335.01 at p. 3); if the Attorney General recommends denial and the President does not act within 30 days, concurrence is presumed (§ 1.8(b))	Reduces or substitutes the punishment. Conviction untouched. Conditions may attach (Schick v. Reed)
Pardon (§ 1.2)	The President alone	“[D]emonstrated good conduct for a substantial period of time after conviction and service of sentence” (JM 9-140.112)	Office of the Pardon Attorney	Five years after release from confinement, or after conviction if no prison term (§ 1.2)	Nothing — the sentence is already served. Lifts legal disabilities
Compassionate release / reduction in sentence (18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A))	The sentencing judge	“[E]xtraordinary and compelling reasons,” weighed against the § 3553(a) factors and consistent with Sentencing Commission policy statements	The sentencing court, after a request to the warden	You may go to court after full administrative exhaustion or the lapse of 30 days from the warden’s receipt of the request, whichever is earlier (§ 3582(c)(1)(A))	The court may reduce the term and may impose probation or supervised release not exceeding the unserved portion
Retroactive guideline amendment (§ 3582(c)(2))	The sentencing judge	Sentence was “based on a sentencing range that has subsequently been lowered by the Sentencing Commission pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 994(o),” reduction consistent with Commission policy statements	The sentencing court	No filing deadline; the motion may come from the defendant, the BOP Director, or the court’s own motion	Reduces the term within the amended range
§ 2255 motion (28 U.S.C. § 2255)	The sentencing judge	Sentence “imposed in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States,” court lacked jurisdiction, sentence exceeded the lawful maximum, or is “otherwise subject to collateral attack”	The court that imposed the sentence	One year, running from the latest of four triggers, including finality of the judgment (§ 2255(f)). A second or successive motion needs circuit certification (§ 2255(h))	Vacates, sets aside, or corrects the sentence — and can reach the conviction
§ 2241 petition (28 U.S.C. § 2241)	A district judge in the district of confinement	Custody “in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States”; in practice, how the sentence is being executed	The district of confinement, not the sentencing district	No statutory deadline; § 2255 is the presumptive route unless it “is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention” (§ 2255(e))	Corrects the execution of the sentence — credit, computation, program eligibility
Direct appeal (Fed. R. App. P. 4(b))	The court of appeals	Legal error in the conviction or sentence	Notice of appeal in the district court	14 days after entry of the judgment or order appealed, with a possible extension of up to 30 more days for excusable neglect or good cause	Can vacate the conviction, the sentence, or both
Rule 35(b) motion (Fed. R. Crim. P. 35)	The sentencing judge — but only the government may move	Substantial assistance in investigating or prosecuting another person, provided after sentencing	The sentencing court	Government’s motion within one year of sentencing (meaning the oral announcement), with three narrow exceptions for later-arising information	Reduces the sentence, and may go below a statutory minimum
First Step Act time credits (18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4))	The Bureau of Prisons	10 days of credit per 30 days of successful programming, plus 5 more for a person at minimum or low risk who has not increased risk over two consecutive assessments; long statutory list of ineligible offenses	Nothing is filed — BOP computes it	Ongoing while programming; credits apply toward prerelease custody or supervised release, with early transfer to supervised release capped at 12 months (§ 3624(g)(3))	Moves the release point forward; does not change the sentence imposed
Good conduct time (§ 3624(b))	The Bureau of Prisons	“[E]xemplary compliance with institutional disciplinary regulations”	Nothing is filed	Up to 54 days for each year of the sentence imposed by the court	Shortens time served; sentence imposed is unchanged
RDAP early release (18 U.S.C. § 3621(e))	The Bureau of Prisons	Conviction of a nonviolent offense plus successful completion of residential substance abuse treatment, defined as at least 6 months of treatment in a unit set apart from general population	Apply to psychology services inside the institution	Reduction “may not be more than one year from the term the prisoner must otherwise serve”	Advances the release date by up to a year

Read the “who decides” column again. Every route on that list except commutation and pardon is decided by a judge applying a written standard, or by the Bureau of Prisons applying a formula. That is the whole argument for exhausting them first — and the reason § 1.3 exists.

Each of these has its own page here: compassionate release, the request to the warden and the 30-day rule, reducing a sentence under § 3582(c) and retroactive amendments, what a § 2255 motion is, the § 2241 petition, how to appeal a federal conviction, Rule 35 motions, First Step Act time credits, good conduct time, and RDAP. If you want the whole map on one page, start at every route out early or post-conviction relief.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: The first document I want in a clemency file is not the petition. It is the docket sheet and the judgment, because § 1.3 turns on what is still available in court, and the Justice Manual says commutation requests “generally are not accepted from persons who are presently challenging their convictions or sentences through appeal or other court proceeding.” A petition filed while a direct appeal or a first § 2255 is pending is a petition filed into a closed door. Sequencing is the work.

The Gate Nobody Mentions: § 1.3 and the “Other Relief” Rule

Most commutation pages tell you there is no waiting period. That is true as far as it goes — 28 C.F.R. § 1.3 imposes no five-year clock like the pardon rule. But it imposes something else, and it is the single most consequential sentence in the whole of Part 1: no commutation petition “should be filed if other forms of judicial or administrative relief are available, except upon a showing of exceptional circumstances.”

The Bureau of Prisons reads that rule the same way. Its own policy statement tells staff that a commutation petition “should be filed only if no other form of relief is available, except when exceptional circumstances exist” (BOP Program Statement 1335.01 at pp. 1–2, available on bop.gov).

Layered on top of the regulation are two DOJ practice rules from JM 9-140.113 — policy, not law, and therefore not binding on the President, but decisive at the desk where your petition lands:

• “Requests for commutation generally are not accepted unless and until a person has begun serving that sentence.”
• “Nor are commutation requests generally accepted from persons who are presently challenging their convictions or sentences through appeal or other court proceeding.”

Note the tension with the constitutional rule. Ex parte Garland holds the President may act “before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.” DOJ’s intake policy is narrower than the Constitution. Both statements are accurate; they operate at different levels. What that means in practice is that the President can act at any time, and the ordinary DOJ pipeline will usually not process your petition until you are serving and out of active litigation.

How a Commutation Petition Actually Moves

Step 1 — Get the right form

There is one federal commutation form. The Bureau tells staff it is the “Petition for Commutation of Sentence (OMB Control Number: 1123-0015)” and that it “is available on the U.S. Pardon Attorney’s website” (PS 1335.01 at pp. 2–3). The regulation adds a second source: “Petition forms for commutation of sentence also may be obtained from the wardens of federal penal institutions” (§ 1.1). Inside a facility, § 571.40(a) is the operative line — a person in custody “may request from the inmate’s case manager the appropriate forms (and instructions) for filing a petition for commutation of sentence.”

The petition itself “shall be addressed to the President of the United States and shall be submitted to the Pardon Attorney, Department of Justice, Washington, DC 20530” (§ 1.1). The Office of the Pardon Attorney publishes the application and instructions on its Apply for Clemency page — and, for the many people who search this in Spanish, it publishes a Spanish-language commutation application and instructions (“Conmutación de la pena — Solicitud e instrucciones – español”) on its Solicite Clemencia page. That Spanish form is the official one; nothing on a private site substitutes for it.

Step 2 — File it through the warden, not around the warden

This is the step that separates a petition that moves from one that stalls, and it is barely mentioned anywhere else. 28 C.F.R. § 571.41(a) provides that “[s]taff shall suggest that an inmate who wishes to submit a petition for commutation of sentence do so through the Warden to the U.S. Pardon Attorney,” because that route lets the institution forward the supporting records with the application.

The Bureau’s implementing instruction is blunter about why: routing through the warden “will expedite consideration of the petition because the Pardon Attorney will then obtain most, if not all, of the requisite Bureau inmate records with the petition that will prevent the need for a subsequent request for standard materials” (PS 1335.01 at p. 2). It also warns that this “does not expedite the Pardon Attorney’s evaluation process, including obtaining inmate records and recommendations from other clemency stakeholders (United States Attorney Office, United States Probation Office, etc.).”

Two protections in the same policy are worth knowing:

• Staff must process it even if they think you are ineligible. “Staff must process an inmate’s petition for commutation of sentence, even when it appears the inmate is not eligible for clemency” (PS 1335.01 at p. 2).
• It gets logged. The case manager “documents the petition receipt with an entry on the BP-A0381, Inmate Activity Record in the Inmate Central File and annotates the status on the inmate’s Individualized Needs Plan, during the inmate’s next program review” (PS 1335.01 at p. 2). Ask for the Individualized Needs Plan at your next program review; that is where you confirm the petition exists in the system.

Step 3 — What the institution must put in the package

This is the operative checklist, reproduced as the Bureau prints it. Once the petition is received, the case manager has 30 calendar days to compile the required documents and route for the Warden’s signature. When referring a petition, staff must include (PS 1335.01 at p. 3):

• Petition for Commutation of Sentence (OMB Control Number: 1123-0015)
• Presentence Investigation Report (if available)
• Judgment in a Criminal Case
• Progress Report (if older than 180 days, a new progress report must be completed)
• Pertinent medical records, if the petition involves the inmate’s health
• Any other available, pertinent, documented information

Two more clocks sit on the institution side. If the Pardon Attorney later needs more information, the request goes directly to the warden and “the Warden ensures the requested documents are forwarded to the U.S. Pardon Attorney within 15 working days” (PS 1335.01 at p. 3). And if the Director of the Bureau of Prisons is asked for a recommendation, the warden “will submit a written response to the Administrator, Correctional Programs Branch, Correctional Programs Division, within 10 days of receiving the request” (PS 1335.01 at p. 4).

Note what the Bureau does not do by default. Under § 571.41(a), “no Bureau of Prisons recommendation is to be forwarded with the package” — a BOP recommendation goes in only “[w]hen specifically requested by the U.S. Pardon Attorney” (§ 571.40(b)).

Step 4 — What the Office of the Pardon Attorney does

Once the petition arrives, 28 C.F.R. § 1.6(a) directs the Attorney General to “cause such investigation to be made of the matter as he or she may deem necessary and appropriate, using the services of, or obtaining reports from, appropriate officials and agencies of the Government, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Where there was a victim of a felony offense and the investigation warrants contact, § 1.6(b) requires reasonable effort to notify the victim that a petition has been filed, that comments may be submitted, and whether the request is ultimately granted or denied. “Reasonable effort” is satisfied “by mailing to the last-known address reported by the victim to the Federal Bureau of Prisons under 28 CFR 551.152.”

The Justice Manual describes the rest of the canvass: the Pardon Attorney “routinely requests the United States Attorney in the district of conviction” to comment, “routinely requests the United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General to solicit the views and recommendation of the sentencing judge,” and “generally asks for a response within 30 days” (JM 9-140.111). Those views are “given considerable weight.” The Attorney General then determines whether the request “is of sufficient merit to warrant favorable action by the President” and “shall report in writing his or her recommendation to the President” (§ 1.6(c)).

One durable point from the same section: “Should a president leave office without acting on a particular clemency petition, that petition will remain open and active until the incoming president reaches a decision” (JM 9-140.111).

Step 5 — The decision, and what happens inside the prison

If it is granted, the Pardon Attorney “will forward the original of the signed and sealed warrant of clemency evidencing the President’s action to the Warden at the detaining institution, with a copy to the Director.” The warden “shall deliver the original warrant to the affected inmate, and obtain a signed receipt for return to the U.S. Pardon Attorney,” and “shall take such action as is indicated in the warrant of clemency” (§ 571.41(c)). BOP then recalculates the sentence under the terms of the order. Under § 1.7, the warrant of commutation is sent to the petitioner “through the officer in charge of his or her place of confinement.”

If it is denied, the Pardon Attorney “ordinarily notifies the Warden, requesting that the Warden notify the inmate of the denial” (§ 571.41(d)), and the warden forwards a copy of the denial letter to the Regional Director (PS 1335.01 at p. 4). There is also a quiet default rule in § 1.8(b): outside death-penalty cases, when the Attorney General recommends denial and the President “does not disapprove or take other action with respect to that adverse recommendation within 30 days after the date of its submission to him, it shall be presumed that the President concurs in that adverse recommendation,” and the case is closed.

If Someone Is Seriously Ill: Two Different Routes, and They Are Not the Same

People conflate commutation with compassionate release constantly. They are separate mechanisms with separate decision-makers, and both have a medical fast lane — in different documents.

On the commutation side, the fast lane is an implementing instruction: “In the event of a medical emergency certified by the physician at the institution where the inmate is confined, staff must expedite the petition at all levels as resources permit” (PS 1335.01 at p. 3). DOJ echoes it from the other end: “When a commutation request is based on the serious illness of the petitioner, an expedited response from the United States Attorney or Assistant Attorney General is always appreciated” (JM 9-140.113).

On the compassionate release side, the fast lane is in the regulation itself: “In the event the basis of the request is the medical condition of the inmate, staff shall expedite the request at all levels” (28 C.F.R. § 571.62(c)). The Bureau adds the caveat that expedited review “does not lessen the requirement to provide the documentation required by this program statement” (BOP Program Statement 5050.51 § 10 at p. 12, available on bop.gov).

The medical criteria BOP applies to a reduction-in-sentence request are written down, which is exactly what commutation lacks (PS 5050.51 §§ 4–5 at pp. 4–6):

• Terminal medical condition — a “terminal, incurable disease (i.e., a serious and advanced illness with an end-of-life trajectory),” assessed under the Bureau’s Compassionate Release Clinical Guidance; the eighteen-month life expectancy in the old PS 5050.50 no longer appears.
• Debilitated medical condition — a serious physical or medical condition, or a serious functional or cognitive impairment, “from which the inmate is not expected to recover, and which substantially diminishes the inmate’s ability to provide self-care within the correctional environment.” The old bed-or-chair tests are gone.
• Elderly with medical conditions — age 65 and older, “experiencing serious deterioration in physical or mental health because of the aging process,” and having served the lesser of 10 years or 75% of the term.
• Infectious disease and other extraordinary medical circumstances — an outbreak or declared public health emergency at the facility that puts a person with personal medical risk factors at increased risk of severe complications or death, or a condition needing long-term or specialized care that “cannot be provided in the Bureau without undue hardship, prohibitive costs, or significant disruption to the safe and orderly running of the institution.”
• “New law” elderly — sentenced for an offense on or after November 1, 1987, age 70 or older, and 30 years or more served. The former BOP category for people 65 or older who had served the greater of 10 years or 75% of the term is gone from PS 5050.51; a court deciding a defendant’s own motion applies U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13(b)(2), which requires age 65, serious age-related deterioration, and the lesser of 10 years or 75% of the term served.

There is also a set of statutory notification duties that families rarely know about. On a terminal diagnosis, § 3582(d)(2)(A) requires the Bureau, subject to confidentiality rules, to notify the attorney, partner and family within 72 hours and tell them they may submit a sentence-reduction request; to provide in-person visiting within 7 days; to have staff assist in preparing the request on request; and to process a request submitted on the person’s behalf within 14 days (PS 5050.51 § 4.a at p. 4).

If illness is the reason you are here, read compassionate release for terminal illness and serious medical conditions and compassionate release for elderly and aging inmates before you read anything about clemency, and check who is not eligible for compassionate release and how long compassionate release takes. The BOP policy behind it is summarized on our Compassionate Release / Reduction in Sentence policy page.

What DOJ Says It Weighs — and Why That Is Policy, Not Law

JM 9-140.113 is the closest thing to published criteria that exists, and it opens by conceding the point: “Commutation of sentence is an extraordinary remedy.” The grounds it names have been stable for decades:

• Disparity or undue severity of sentence.
• Critical illness or old age.
• Meritorious service rendered to the government — “e.g., cooperation with investigative or prosecutive efforts that has not been adequately rewarded by other official action.”
• A combination of equitable factors, “such as demonstrated rehabilitation while in custody or exigent circumstances unforeseen by the court at the time of sentencing.”

Two more considerations DOJ names: “[t]he amount of time already served and the availability of other remedies are taken into account,” and — for a petitioner who disputes guilt — “in clemency cases the correctness of the underlying conviction is assumed, and the question of guilt or innocence is not generally at issue,” though a prosecutor “should address these issues” if the petitioner raises innocence (JM 9-140.111).

The Bureau’s own policy statement prints essentially the same traditional grounds (PS 1335.01 at p. 2).

Say the obvious thing out loud: the Justice Manual is Department of Justice policy, not law. It does not bind the President, it creates no rights, and — like the Part 1 regulations under § 1.11 — it cannot be enforced against the government by a petitioner. It is useful because it tells you what the people who write the recommendation are looking for, not because it entitles you to anything.

If your argument is that the sentence is out of step with today’s law, the sharper tools are usually judicial: mandatory minimum sentences and retroactive amendments under § 3582(c). If your argument is cooperation, Rule 35 motions is the page to read — and note the hard constraint that only the government may file one. If your argument is innocence, that is actual innocence and § 2255 territory first.

How Rare Is a Commutation? What the Published Numbers Show

The Office of the Pardon Attorney publishes clemency statistics by administration and fiscal year. These are the government’s own figures, from the Clemency Statistics page as last updated January 23, 2025:

Administration (period covered)	Commutation petitions received	Commutations granted
Joseph R. Biden (48 months)	13,201	4,165
Donald J. Trump, first term (47.5 months)	10,109	94
Barack H. Obama (96 months)	33,149	1,715
George W. Bush (96 months)	8,576	11
William J. Clinton (96 months)	5,488	61

Three cautions on reading that table, all of them from OPA’s own legend. First, grants are counted from clemency warrants, and “[c]ases in which clemency was granted to a person who did not file under the Department of Justice regulations, through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, are counted as ‘Petitions Granted’ but have not been counted as ‘Petitions Pending’ or ‘Petitions Received'” — so a raw grant-to-petition ratio is approximate, not exact. Second, class-wide grants by proclamation are excluded entirely. Third, the table as published stops at the start of FY2025; it is not a live feed, and nothing here predicts what any future administration will do.

What the numbers do establish is the shape of the thing: commutation grants have swung by two orders of magnitude between administrations while petitions filed have stayed in the thousands per term. That volatility is itself the argument for treating clemency as a supplement to a judicial strategy rather than a substitute for one.

If a Petition Is Denied

A denial is not an adverse judgment; it is the absence of a discretionary act. There is no appeal, and no court will review the merits — that is the direct consequence of Woodard and of § 1.11‘s statement that the rules “create no enforceable rights in persons applying for executive clemency.”

On re-filing, be careful about what the rules actually say. 28 C.F.R. Part 1 sets no general waiting period before a new commutation petition may be submitted. The only “one bite” rule in Part 1 is confined to capital cases: “Only one request for commutation of a death sentence will be processed to completion, absent a clear showing of exceptional circumstances” (§ 1.10(e)). Practice on re-filing is set by the Office of the Pardon Attorney’s own instructions rather than by regulation, so read the current instructions on the Apply for Clemency page before assuming a fixed interval applies. Our after a clemency denial page covers what a second-round file needs to add.

More often, the right answer after a denial is a different mechanism entirely. If the issue is how BOP is computing the sentence or applying credits, that is challenging a BOP sentence computation through the Administrative Remedy Program — the BP-8 through BP-11 sequence explained on our prison grievances page — and then a § 2241 petition. If the issue is the legality of the sentence itself, it is § 2255 deadlines and, where a prior motion has already been filed, second or successive § 2255 motions. If a compassionate release motion was denied on the record you had, a second compassionate release motion on a changed record is sometimes the cleaner path.

Death-Sentence Cases Follow a Separate Rule

If the sentence is death, 28 C.F.R. § 1.10 governs and the deadlines are real:

• The request must come from the person under sentence of death, or from “the person’s attorney acting with the person’s written and signed authorization.”
• “No petition for reprieve or commutation of a death sentence should be filed before proceedings on the petitioner’s direct appeal of the judgment of conviction and first petition under 28 U.S.C. 2255 have terminated.”
• “A petition for commutation of sentence should be filed no later than 30 days after the petitioner has received notification from the Bureau of Prisons of the scheduled date of execution.”
• “All papers in support … should be filed no later than 15 days after the filing of the petition itself. Papers filed by the petitioner more than 15 days after the commutation petition has been filed may be excluded from consideration.”
• Clemency counsel may request an oral presentation to the Office of the Pardon Attorney, and so may the family of a victim; the presentation “should be requested at the time the clemency petition is filed.”
• “Only one request for commutation of a death sentence will be processed to completion, absent a clear showing of exceptional circumstances.”

DOJ’s parallel policy statement is that in a capital case “the petitioner must have exhausted only the first motion for relief under 18 U.S.C. § 2255 before applying for clemency” (JM 9-140.113).

After a Grant: Conditions, Supervision, and What Is Still on the Record

Three things survive a commutation, and people are routinely surprised by all three.

The conviction survives. A commutation “has no effect upon the underlying conviction and does not necessarily reflect upon the fairness of the sentence originally imposed” (JM 9-140.113). If the goal is relief from the conviction’s consequences — professional licensing, firearms, immigration exposure — the instrument is a pardon, and only after the sentence is complete and the five-year clock under § 1.2 has run. See federal pardon lawyers and how to apply for a federal pardon, and, for the limits of the power itself, the presidential pardon power and its limits.

Conditions can survive. Schick v. Reed holds the President may attach conditions that are themselves constitutional, and DOJ policy contemplates conditions “similar to those imposed pursuant to parole or supervised release or, in the case of an alien, upon condition of deportation.” The warden is directed to “take such action as is indicated in the warrant of clemency” (§ 571.41(c)) — so the warrant’s terms, not the original judgment, control what happens on release.

Financial obligations survive unless separately remitted. A commutation of a prison term does not cancel a fine or restitution; remission of fine is a distinct form of clemency under § 1.1, and while incarcerated the obligation runs through BOP’s Financial Responsibility Program — see inmate restitution.

What changed recently in commutation policy

BOP Program Statement 1335.01, Petition for Commutation of Sentence, took effect September 3, 2026, signed by Director William K. Marshall III. Its Summary of Changes records that it rescinded PS 1330.19 (June 5, 2025) and that it (PS 1335.01 at p. 1):

• “Removed the requirement for Victim/Witness Notification by Unit Management staff when a petition is received by an inmate.”
• “Updates the program statement number to 1335.01”

The June 5, 2025 edition it replaced (PS 1330.19) had rescinded PS 1330.15, CN-1 (May 2, 2014) and moved clemency communication to email, and the current policy keeps that. It states that “[t]he Office of the Pardon Attorney has converted to a digital office, so email is the preferred mode of communication and transmission on all clemency matters,” that OPA “maintains a telephone and Pardon Attorney staff will respond to voicemails as time and resources allow,” and that hard copy is accepted “[w]hen email is not feasible” at the Office of the Pardon Attorney, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20530 (PS 1335.01 at p. 3). It also warns that OPA “may delay and/or return petitions received without the required supporting documentation” (PS 1335.01 at p. 3).

The underlying regulations have not moved with it. 28 C.F.R. §§ 571.40–571.41 carry an effective date of December 29, 2016, and the Part 1 clemency rules were last substantially amended in 2000. Anything you read that cites PS 1330.19 or the older PS 1330.15 is describing a rescinded edition. Our current-policy explainer is Petition for Commutation of Sentence.

Working With a Lawyer on a Commutation Petition

A commutation petition is a persuasive document assembled around a records file, and most of the work is records work. Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm with more than 20 years of federal and appellate criminal defense experience, handling federal post-conviction matters nationwide from offices in Columbia and Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

What that work involves on a clemency file:

• Sequencing against § 1.3. Reviewing the docket and judgment to identify what judicial or administrative relief remains available, because the regulation says a petition should not be filed while it does — and because DOJ says petitions generally are not accepted from people in active litigation.
• Assembling the record the Pardon Attorney will actually see. The judgment, the presentence report, the sentence computation, a current progress report (BOP requires a new one if the existing report is more than 180 days old), disciplinary history, program completions, and medical records where health is the ground.
• Confirming the petition is moving. Checking that receipt is documented on the Inmate Activity Record and annotated on the Individualized Needs Plan at the next program review, and that the warden’s package went out inside the 30-day compilation window.
• Framing the grounds against JM 9-140.113 — sentencing disparity, illness or age, unrewarded cooperation, rehabilitation in custody, circumstances the sentencing court could not have foreseen — while being candid that clemency is discretionary and that no lawyer can promise an outcome from a discretionary act.
• Coordinating with the judicial routes rather than instead of them, since the availability of a § 3582(c) motion, a § 2255, a § 2241 or a Rule 35 motion is itself a factor DOJ weighs.

Legal representation is provided by Elizabeth Franklin-Best. You can reach the firm at (843) 620-1100 or through the contact page. For the commercial side of this practice area, see federal clemency lawyers, commutation of sentence, commutation eligibility, and choosing a federal clemency lawyer.

Frequently Asked Questions About Securing a Commutation

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026