Jason Hernandez, who now lives in Texas, knows he’s one of a lucky few.

At 21 years old, a federal judge sentenced Hernandez to life in prison, plus 320 years for drug offenses that mostly occurred while he was a teen. In 2013, President Barack Obama approved his application for clemency after Hernandez turned his life around. 

“I was once inmate number 07031078. And now through clemency and only clemency. I am, once again, Jason Hernandez. I hope and pray Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley’s historic legislation to transform our nation’s broken clemency system and addresses the growing problems of mass incarceration continues with the necessary steps so that it becomes law,” said Hernandez. 

Hernandez spoke during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday on Pressley’s FIX Clemency Act. It’s a bill she worked on with Representative Cori Bush of Missouri. Pressley said the current the backlog of clemency applications at the Justice Department shows the need for the legislation. There are about 17,000 cases currently awaiting review, up from 2,000 petitions in the backlog in 2010.

“Currently, applications for clemency are under the full control of staff in the Department of Justice and must undergo repeated scrutiny with duplicative layers of bureaucratic review. ...at any point in this process, one lone staffer can unilaterally prevent an application from moving forward,” Pressley said. 

Last month, President Joe Biden announced he was granting clemency to 78 individuals, consisting of three pardons and 75 commutations. Bush believes that it’s a step forward for his administration but is not enough and criticized the Trump administration for its use of the clemency process. 

“During the previous administration, the President largely used his clemency power for cronies for family members, political allies and friends. Rather than a tool of redemption and decarceration. He wielded this authority for nepotism and corruption. Clemency became an extension of the privilege afforded to the rich and the powerful in the context of our punitive carceral system. Clemency provides President Biden with the authority to put humanity over greed, Justice over violence and righteousness over corruption,” Bush said. 

The Fix Clemency Act would create an independent clemency board of nine people appointed by the President, including a previously incarcerated. The board would send its recommendations directly to the president. Advocates say the current process is not working. 

“Having so much separation of bureaucracy between the President and the people who are doing the evaluation doesn’t help that at all,” said Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of Saint Thomas School of Law. 

The proposal has the support of the ACLU, Amnesty International and Americans for Prosperity, but House leaders have not yet signed onto the proposals.

“The current federal clemency process is extremely problematic given that the same federal agency–the Department of Justice–that holds the power to prosecute someone also controls recommendations to the President for clemency. This presents a clear conflict of interest, as these recommendations require the Department of Justice to be willing to admit that its prior sentencing recommendation was unjust or inaccurate. Our team has partnered with Representative Ayanna Pressley and other stakeholders from the initial inception of the FIX Clemency Act and believes this legislation is an improvement over the current process,” said Jeremiah Mostelle, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity. 

At the hearing, some critics said that the proposal would eliminate important checks and balances when clemency petitions are reviewed.

“These multiple points of review are reevaluating someone who has been investigated, prosecuted, and convicted for violating our criminal laws. And we should make damn sure they are not a threat to society,” said Michael Hurst Jr., a former Assistant U.S. Attorney. 

Opponents also argue that creating a dedicated clemency board could prove to be a waste of taxpayer dollars. Currently, the president has the unilateral authority to grant clemency and would not be required to take the board’s recommendations into account. 

“Even if Congress were successful in establishing this new ‘U.S. Clemency Board,’ there is no authority requiring the President to use, rely upon or defer to this new agency. Every President has relied upon DOJ’s Office of Pardon Attorney to handle the review of clemency petitions for him, even Presidents who desired to expedite and speed up the process in order to grant more clemency requests,” Hurst added. 

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) who presided over the hearing, said the next step in the process would include meeting with the current pardon attorney. They provided no future dates when the legislation might be voted on in the future.