“A coalition of criminal-justice-reform advocates asked President Obama on Tuesday to expand the number of inmates eligible for clemency by granting commutations to broad categories of nonviolent offenders.
“Currently, inmates who meet certain criteria file individual clemency petitions that are reviewed by several layers of officials at the Justice Department and the White House.
“The coalition, which includes former judges and prosecutors as well as groups such as the NAACP and the Sentencing Project, is asking Obama instead to ‘grant sweeping commutations’ to large groups of inmates, possibly without the individual review of each petition.”