At a congressional hearing last week dedicated to clemency, both sides of the political aisle repeatedly agreed that the U.S. has a "two-tiered system of justice." But the makeup of that hierarchy is decidedly different depending on who you're listening to. In Republicans' telling, it is a system corrupted and fractured by political bias; in Democrats' view, it is poor people and people of color who are relegated to the bottom.
My response: Yes. Both parties and both positions are, in many ways, correct—which should be the starting point for the conversation about how to improve a clemency process that has been polluted and gone stale in modern times.
