81. Kennedy, John F. and Robert F. Kennedy. Rare clemency document signed as President and Attorney General (“John F. Kennedy” and “Robert F. Kennedy”), 2 pages on a single (9 x 13.5 in.; 229 x 343 mm) leaf, 16 July 1963. Signed in full in dark black ink at the lower right, “John F. Kennedy”, and countersigned “Robert F. Kennedy”. Some soiling and wear to the folds. The gold foil seal of the Department of Justice is intact except for loss on aforementioned fold.

Pres. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy grant clemency to a California man convicted of trafficking marijuana.

The partly-printed and typed document reads in part: WHEREAS Peter Young was convicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California on an indictment (No. 25738-DC), charging violations of Section 176(a), Title 21, United States Code, and on May twenty-seventh, 1957, a sentence of fifty years imprisonment was imposed; and
WHEREAS the aforesaid conviction was appealed and affirmed on January ninth, 1961, by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; and
WHEREAS the said Peter Young was committed to the United States Penitentiary, McNeil Island, Washington, July twenty-first, 1957, and will be eligible to be released therefrom with credit for statutory good time December twenty-first, 1990; and
WHEREAS it has been made to appear that the ends of justice do not require the aforesaid sentence be served in its entirety;”
Now, therefore, be it known that I, John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America, in consideration of the premises, divers other good and sufficient reasons me thereunto moving, do hereby commute the sentence of the aforesaid Peter Young to a term of ten years imprisonment.

Section 176(a), Title 21 of the U.S. Code defines and sets penalties for the illegal importation of marijuana. Here, JFK and his attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy, reduce the sentence of Peter Young from 50 years to 10. The circumstances of the case, and Young’s application for clemency, are not known.
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June 11, 2015 11:00 AM PDT
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