When Will Obama Reform Presidential Pardons?

When Will Obama Reform Presidential Pardons?

As a candidate for president in 2008, Barack Obama pledged to "immediately" review federal mandatory minimum sentences "to see where we can be smarter on crime and reduce the ineffective warehousing of nonviolent drug offenders." Obama also had written memoirs, in which he admitted to using marijuana and cocaine -- "maybe a little blow when you could afford it" -- as a teen. And he's the first black president.

Linda Aaron, a black Alabama grandmother, voted for Obama. For years, Aaron had been hoping that President George W. Bush would commute the obscenely long prison sentence of her son,...