Miami-Dade County Democratic state Rep. Dotie Joseph at the Capitol on Nov. 19, 2024. (Photo by Mitch Perry/Florida Phoenix)
With just two days left in his presidency, Miami-Dade Democratic Rep. Dotie Joseph is calling on Joe Biden to extend clemency and pardons to a handful of individuals and groups who she says represent critical cases of injustice and unfairness.
She’s calling for clemency for Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist who was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of two FBI agents in a 1975 shooting on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Peltier has been imprisoned for more than 48 years, with dozens of members of Congress urging his release. Peltier, 79, has maintained his innocence throughout his time in prison.
She wants a presidential pardon for Marilyn Mosby, state attorney for Baltimore from 2015 to 2013. Last May she was sentenced to 12 months of home confinement as part of a 36 month sentence of supervised release for making a false mortgage application and two counts of perjury.
Joseph described Mosby in her letter as “the courageous State Attorney whose politically motivated prosecution was pay-back for her efforts to hold accountable those responsible for the inexcusable death of Freddy Gray, who was killed while handcuffed in custody.”
Joseph seeks a pardon for Steven Donziger, an environmental and human rights attorney. Donziger won a $9.5 billion judgement against Chevron in an environmental lawsuit in Ecuador. He was sentenced to six months in jail in 2023 for failing to comply with a judge’s order to surrender all of his electronic devices, according to CNBC.
Rep. Joseph is calling for a pardon for survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking who are “incarcerated for desperate acts of self-defense against their abusers, and doing so would redress the system’s failure to protect them and end their cycle of continued victimization.”
Biden’s tenure in office ends at 11:59 am next Monday, Jan.20.
Biden commuted the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses on Friday morning.