NJ: Considering that two of the most high-profile pardons in recent years -- Marc Rich and Scooter Libby -- have gone to people with strong connections to the president, do average petitioners for White House mercy feel like are at a disadvantage?

Love: Well, not really. I think most people who come to ask for a pardon from the president understand that it's a long shot in the best of times. But I don't think that most of them feel that it's an unfair system. Historically... those who come seeking pardon understand that there's a regular system for processing pardon applications through the Justice Department, and I think they believe that if they're treated fairly, they will have a chance. That's the reason that they apply.

NJ: The pardon has a history of being used to heal national wounds. Andrew Johnson pardoned most Confederates, and Jimmy Carter pardoned the draft dodgers, to name two examples. As pardon power has been used less in the last three decades, do you see any missed opportunities?

Love: Oh gee, I think there are a lot of missed opportunities for its use. We have -- two things have happened in the federal system in the past 25 years. First, we instituted a new sentencing system, and there was a sense of getting tough on crime... with mandatory minimum sentences and long guideline sentences. There is no other way to get out of prison. We have no parole in the federal system, and it has become a very inflexible, rigid system, and people are sent to prison for very long terms, and there's no way to get out.

At the same time, for people who are out of prison who are trying to become reintegrated into society, there are many, many collateral consequences that keep them from exercising their civil rights and getting jobs, that are mitigated, avoided, only through a pardon. So people really need pardon these days, and it seems like at the very time that people need pardon the most, it has become essentially unavailable to them.

NJ: Eric Holder, who will likely be Barack Obama's choice for attorney general, has some background in pardons, correct?

Love: Yes, he was deputy attorney general, and in that capacity he was the political appointee in the Department of Justice who handled all pardon applications received from the pardon attorney, and he would send them on to the White House.

NJ: Pardon has dropped off people's radars to some extent. How might Holder shine new light on the process?

Love: Well, the attorney general could always give a new prominence to the pardon program. I think it sort of depends on what President Obama is going to want to do with his powers. If he has an interest in exercising his power more regularly and more generously than the last couple of presidents have, then he will ask his Justice Department to beef up the program. And that might mean he'd ask the attorney general to take personal responsibility for it. That actually would be a very good idea. That's the way it was up until Ronald Reagan.

NJ: How would the pardon process function in your ideal world?

Love: My first choice would be to keep the pardon process in the Department of Justice. But the key thing is that it has to be more independent than it has been in the last 30 years. It has become... captive to the agenda of the prosecutors in the department. Unless it could be made independent within the department, then it's never really going to serve the president in the way it should.

NJ: What role would you like to see pardon playing that it isn't now?

Love: I think there are a number of roles that pardon plays that certainly can deliver a just result to individuals who seek it and need it. But I think more than that, it can show where there are flaws in the legal system. It gives the president really a bully pulpit to speak both to his own appointees and to Congress about where the laws need to be changed.

I mean, that really is the whole idea of pardon... it functions as sort of a corrective to the legal system.... Unfortunately, the legal system doesn't always do perfect justice, and that's where you need the pardon power. That's the way Alexander Hamilton conceived of it: to make what he called "exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt." That's kind of a nice phrase. But for many years the pardon power has not worked like that.

NJ: I know you take a dim view of speculation about which well-connected or celebrity convict -- Marion Jones' name has been floated -- will get a pardon. Does that theater have any value, though, since it keeps the pardon process in the public eye? Or does it cheapen the privilege?

Love: Well, I think it would be preferable, in my view, if the president used the power more regularly to benefit ordinary people and he used it to help the public understand how the justice system works. It's not just a special favors-dispensing system. It really is something that helps the system work more justly.

And so I think it's kind of distracting when you get a lot of celebrities who are applying who would not ordinarily be eligible under the Department of Justice's own regulations. It's just distracting, and I think it's a missed opportunity, frankly, to help the public to understand about how the justice system works.

It's also a missed opportunity, I think, to tell the good news about the justice system. How people can commit crimes and go off the track and yet they can put their lives back together and rehabilitate themselves. Those are good-news stories.

NJ: Let's say Obama was committed to using pardon for the lofty goals you've mentioned. Considering the bad rap the pardon process has developed in the last few decades, how would you advise him to go about reviving the pardon tradition?

Love: I would advise him to start pardoning pretty much right away. Give pardon to little people who are not particularly controversial, just ordinary people who have cases that fit within the Justice Department guidelines. I would also recommend that he do some grants that show some of the problems that people face in trying to rehabilitate themselves coming back to the community.

He might branch out a little bit if things went well, starting up in a low-key fashion, to look at some of the harsh sentencing laws and do some grants that would give signals to Congress about where the law needed to be changed. For example, there is no way to avoid being deported if you are a non-citizen if you committed an aggravated felony, which is any drug crime, for example, no matter when it was committed. Even if it was committed 25 years ago or 30 years ago, you are likely to be deported, and the only way that you can avoid that is to be pardoned. So there are many people who are living very productive, law-abiding lives in this country with U.S. citizen families who, really, we should want to keep here. A pardon is the only way that they can be kept here.

NJ: In more controversial cases where you have groups that feel very strongly one way or the other, how do you minimize their role so that they don't overly politicize a pardon?

Love: Well, the pardon power is necessarily political. I mean, the only check on it is public opinion. So it's necessarily political in that good sense that the president is really acting as the conscience of the community. So if he can't sell his message to the public, then he's just going to have to do what he has to do.

President Ford, in pardoning President Nixon -- former President Nixon at that time -- came under severe criticism. It probably cost him his second term -- his first real term -- as president. But in retrospect, people now think that it was absolutely the right thing to do. So sometimes the president has to buck public opinion. Sometimes he has to go with it.