In a call for criminal justice reform amid the White House's latest pardons and commutations, President Donald Trump should do more of them, according to legal expert Alan Dershowitz on Newsmax TV.
"I think he should do more pardons because sentences are way, way out of line in this country," Dershowitz, who made constitutional law arguments for Trump impeachment defense team, told Wednesday's "Newsmax Now."
"We have the harshest sentences of any western democracy in the world; in fact, it's multiples of sentences that other countries have," he added.
In addition to supporting Tuesday's pardons and commuted sentences, Dershowitz pointed not only to the case of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but also to the controversy surrounding the harsh sentence of Roger Stone, who was hit with the U.S. justice system's "trial penalty," which needs reform.
"We have a terrible problem called the trial penalty," Dershowitz told host John Bachman. "If you go to trial today – instead of waving your right to go to trial, if you exercise your right to go to trial – you get a 5-time, sometimes 10-time multiple of what you would have gotten if you would have pleaded guilty.
"There's something very wrong with that."
The presidential pardon power is a constitutionally just way to enact the "checks and balances" on an overzealous judiciary, according to Dershowitz.
"The courts won't remedy it, and the legislature won't remedy it, so the president has to remedy it," he concluded.
Important: See Newsmax TV now carried in 70 million cable homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, or Find More Cable Systems – Click Here.
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.