The President has the power to grant amnesty, commute a sentence, or grant a full pardon for any offense against the United States. However, the President cannot pardon a person for an offense committed against a state. Amnesty means that you are immune from prosecution for a specific act. The best example, would be granting amnesty to all people who peacefully resisted being drafted for a war they opposed. In that instance, if the government was about to charge draft dodgers with a crime, the president could grant amnesty to all of those people.

A commutation is where the President does not remove the record of the conviction, but removes all of part of a sentence. An example of this is when I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted of crimes, he received a sentence of 30 months in jail. Then President George W. Bush commuted the sentence. In that instance, Libby still remains a convicted felon.

A pardon full removes the conviction, and reinstates all rights of the individual to their rights as they were before the prosecution that caused them to be convicted.

Clemency is a word used to describe the entire umbrella of pardons, commutations and amnesty.