Sam Morison

Sam Morison has practiced law for more than 25 years and is a nationally recognized expert on federal executive clemency and the restoration of civil rights.  He is currently an Appellate Defense Counsel in the Military Commissions Defense Office, where he is responsible for representing detainees convicted in military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba of violating the international law of war, in appellate proceedings before the United States Court of Military Commission Review, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.

From 1997 to 2010, he served as a staff attorney in the Office of the Pardon Attorney, which is the agency within the U.S. Department of Justice that is responsible for assisting the President in the exercise of the pardon power.  In this position, he was responsible for reviewing literally thousands of applications for all forms of executive clemency and advising the President about their disposition. He is the author, among others, of Presidential Pardons and Immigration Law, 6 Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties 253 (2010) and The Politics of Grace: On the Moral Justification of Executive Clemency, 9 Buffalo Criminal Law Review 1 (2005).
The views expressed in Mr. Morison’s written works are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense or the United States.