For most of us, the only time we consider the propriety of a sentence is when it applies to some outlier conviction we read about in the funny pages. What never quite makes it to our radar is the tens of thousands of mundane convictions of defendants whose names mean nothing beyond their families, friends and, in some cases, victims. At the moment of sentence, a process that’s primarily voodoo as an honest judge might admit, passions are strong and consequences taken seriously.

But what about 20 years later?

End-of-term clemency chaos has become an unfortunate presidential tradition, as presidents scramble after ignoring this crucial power for most of their time in office. That is how we ended up with Bill Clinton unloading 140 pardons on his last day in office, including one to the wholly undeserving Marc Rich, a fugitive financier; George W. Bush wrecking his relationship with Dick Cheney by refusing at the last minute to give a full pardon to Scooter Libby, Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, for obstructing a federal investigation; and Donald Trump issuing pardons to undeserving cronies and celebrities.

In an op-ed written by two prawfs who have paid their dues on issue, Rachel Barkow and Mark Osler, we’re reminded that most presidents exercise their pardon power on the way out the door. It’s not that they can’t find time signing off on pardons throughout their term, while negotiating world peace or raising/lowering taxes. It’s not that anyone even notices outside the handful of high profile pardons, like Crazy Joe Arpaio or Marc Rich. It’s that they just don’t bother to use this power for the prison plebes who could have gotten a 121 but ended up level 34 by refusing to buy when the plea discount was on the table.

For the most part, applications for clemency and pardons run though the Department of Justice, not exactly the most defendant-friendly bunch in Washington. Before it ever hits the White House staffers’ desk, it’s gone through the wringer.

It has already run a gauntlet of review that included the U. S. attorney for the district where the petitioner was convicted, the U.S. Deputy Attorney General, the staff at the Domestic Policy Council and the White House counsel. Isn’t that review enough?

So what has President Biden done about these thoroughly vetted pardons?

Mr. Biden has granted 25 pardons and commuted the sentences of 131 other people, according to the most recent Justice Department data. That is a mere 1.4 percent of the petitions he has received, based on our analysis. No modern U.S. president, going back to Richard Nixon, has had a rate so low; though of course, Mr. Biden is still in office.

There were also some performative pardons, such as vets convicted of gay sex or simple marijuana possession, which weren’t about letting anyone out of jail, but removing the stigma of conviction. Not a bad thing at all, but not a big deal either.

And then there’s the death penalty, the one Candidate Biden promised to end.

As a candidate, Mr. Biden pledged to pass legislation that would end the federal death penalty. That did not happen, and his record has been mixed as president. His Justice Department imposed a moratorium on executions and withdrew more than two dozen execution requests. Yet earlier this year the department announced it would seek the death penalty against the white gunman who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022, and it unsuccessfully sought the death penalty against the man who killed eight people on a Manhattan bike path on Halloween in 2017.

But it’s not like anyone was actually executed under Biden’s watch, right? The problem is that it won’t always be Biden’s watch, and the new boss, much like the old boss, may see things differently if federal prisoners remain on death row.

Thirteen federal prisoners were executed in the final six months of Mr. Trump’s administration, ending what had been a 17-year hiatus. The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump presidency, largely assembled by former members of his administration, calls for executing every remaining person on death row. (Mr. Trump has claimed to know nothing about Project 2025.) But based on his record in office, a repeat performance is likely if Mr. Trump is elected. That is why Mr. Biden should make good on his professed opposition to capital punishment and remove the death penalty as a possibility for those now awaiting execution.

But these are bad dudes, the worst of the worst, right? Maybe, but commuting their sentence to life in prison isn’t going to put them back on the street. Even so, these are the most extreme cases, not the pedestrian cases where some bottom tier drug runner in a 30-person conspiracy got nailed with a zillion kilos because he had no one to give up. There are far more of these defendants doing big time than people realize.

As someone who has known one or two (maybe more) defendants whose sentence exceeded 121 months, there is little if anything to be gained, no matter how bad a dude they started out as, by keeping them beyond 10 years. Not only is that a very long time to teach someone a lesson not to engage in criminal conduct, but it’s just empty, wasted time after that, serving no discernible purpose while costing the taxpayer a shockingly lot of money.

One might have expected Joe Biden to be a president who would use the pardon power, both to commute death sentences and to sign off on clemency for the vast number of over-sentenced defendants who make up incarceration nation. We know how they got there, when ratcheting up sentences was the simplistic solution to crime, and then ratcheting them up again and again each time it failed to fix anything.

President Biden is at the end of his term. It’s a shame that he failed to do more, much more, along the way to deal with outrageously excessive sentences, but he didn’t.

Legacy no doubt is on President Biden’s mind. Having given up on a second term, he must be thinking about how history will judge his four years as president. One area he should think hard about is his paltry record on clemency, which plays a part in shaping every president’s legacy. Even with a little more than three months left in office, it is not too late for Mr. Biden to create a record he can point to with pride.

There’s still time to deal with this. Do it, Joe.