Obama has directed the Justice Department to improve its clemency recommendation process and recruit more applications from convicts, White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said Tuesday. "The president believes that one important purpose can be to help correct the effects of outdated and overly harsh sentences that Congress and the American people have since recognized are no longer in the best interests of justice," Ruemmler said Tuesday at New York University's law school. Kiser noted at sentencing that although Cantu didn't have a criminal record, the quantity of drugs involved in his case deserved a sentence within the recommended guidelines. Last December, Obama cut time for eight defendants sentenced under old guidelines that treated convictions for crack cocaine offenses more harshly than those involving the powder form of the drug.