Commute Pardon

‘Commute/Pardon’
Both commute and pardon were top lookups this week in response to actions by outgoing president Joe Biden and incoming president Donald Trump.

Biden commutes life sentence for South Dakota Native American activist Leonard Peltier
— (headline), The Aberdeen (South Dakota) American News, 21 Jan. 2025

2025 inauguration: Donald Trump signs first round of executive orders, issues pardons for Jan. 6 rioters
— (headline), The Niagara Falls (Ontario) Review, 21 Jan. 2025

Although both pertain to acts of clemency, pardon and commute differ in meaning. Pardon, as a verb, may be defined as “to absolve from the consequences of a fault or the punishment of crime”; as a noun it has legal uses such as “a release from the legal penalties of an offense” and “an official warrant of remission of penalty as an act of clemency.” To commute a sentence, in legal use, is “to change (a penalty) to one less severe especially out of clemency”; the corresponding noun, defined as “a change of a legal penalty or punishment to a lesser one,” is commutation.