Hochul grants clemencies, gives updates on reforms
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Governor Kathy Hochul granted 13 clemencies on Wednesday and gave her first public update on a series of reforms she promised a year ago. File photo by Mike Groll/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
By Jacob Kaye
Governor Kathy Hochul granted clemency to a little more than a dozen New Yorkers on Wednesday, and publicly shared, for the first time, updates to the clemency reforms she promised a year ago but has been slow to act on.
In total, 13 individuals had their clemency applications approved by the governor this week, the typical time of year the governor’s office grants clemencies. Nine New Yorkers were pardoned by the governor on Wednesday, a majority of whom were facing the threat of deportation for past convictions or criminal charges. Four other New Yorkers, including one from Queens, were granted sentence commutations, many of whom have spent the bulk of, if not, the entirety of their adult lives behind bars.
"Clemency is a powerful tool that can be exercised to advance the interests of justice and fairness, and to recognize efforts made by individuals to improve not only their own lives but the lives of those around them," Hochul said in a statement.
"These grants of clemency serve not only to acknowledge the steps these individuals have taken to rehabilitate themselves, but to remind others that such change is possible and that nobody should be defined by their worst mistake,” she added.
The power to grant clemency resides only with the governor. Applications for clemency, which are made by the hundreds to the governor’s office each year, are often granted in the days leading up to Christmas, though there have been exceptions – former Governor Andrew Cuomo granted a slew of clemency applications in the days leading up to his resignation amid a sexual harassment scandal.
For years, advocates have been calling for reforms to the clemency process, including the granting of clemencies on a rolling basis throughout the year. Hochul heard the calls and promised action last year after granting her first round of clemencies as governor.
Though they have been slow to materialize, Hochul shared a number of updates to the reforms on Wednesday. Many of the updates were first reported by the Eagle in November.
Hochul revealed the names of half a dozen people who have formed the state’s first-ever Clemency Advisory Panel. The panel – one of the reforms introduced by Hochul last year – is designed to assist the governor with clemency applications, by reviewing them and recommending candidates to be granted clemency.
The panel, though it has yet to be completed, doesn’t currently include a member who was formally incarcerated or who was previously granted clemency, as advocates had hoped. However, its likely that advisory panel members with lived experiences will soon be appointed, sources with knowledge of the panel told the Eagle.
Included on the panel are Kathleen Gaerbing, a former superintendent at Otisville Correcitonal Facility; retired Judge Priscilla Hall, who sat as an associate justice in the Appellate Division, Second Department for nine years; Rev. Christopher House, the lead pastor of Christian Community Church of Ithaca; Symour James, a partner handling criminal defense, wrongful convication and civil rights cases at Barket Epstein Keoron Aldea & LoTurco and a former attorney-in-chief at the Legal Aid Society; Gerald Mollen, who previously served as the Broome County District Attorney; and Karen Zielger, the director of the Albany County Crime Victim and Sexual Violence Center.
The panel first conviened in October and is currently scheduling its first regular meeting.
Hochul has also made changes to the way clemency applicants get updates on their bid for release or pardon – something that was virtually non-existent in years past.
The governor’s office has begun sending out bi-annual letters to applicants, letting them know the status of their application and informing them about how they can supplement their application. The first of those letters was sent out earlier this year.
The governor’s office has also launched two new webpages on its website which includes instructions on how to best craft and submit applications for either a sentence commutation or pardon.
But not all of the reforms have begun to materialize.
Last year, Hochul said that her office would release the number of pending and rejected applications along with each granted clemency she announced. Her office did not publicly share that data on Wednesday.
After the Eagle requested the data, a spokesperson for the governor’s office said that are currently 1,298 pending applications on the governor’s desk. Of those, 441 are requesting pardons and the remaining 857 are requesting sentence commutations.
Additionally, the 13 clemencies granted by Hochul this week were the first since she granted 10 clemencies a year ago. In the months leading up to this week’s clemency announcement, advocates have called on the governor to follow through on her promise to grant clemencies throughout the year, the reform advocates say is the most meaningful.
“While our hearts break for those who are equally deserving of clemency and did not receive good news today, we double down on our commitment to keep fighting for their freedom,” Jose DiLenola, the Clemency Campaign Director of the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign, said in a statement.
“To that end, we look forward to Governor Hochul fulfilling her commitment to grant more clemencies on an ongoing basis,” DiLenola added.
Steve Zeidman, the director of CUNY Law School’s Criminal Defense Clinic, told the Eagle this week that with the panel now in place, he is hopeful that clemencies will be granted on a rolling basis in 2023.
“There should be no reason why that rolling clemency can’t actually happen,” Zeidman said. “Before, [the governor’s office] was saying, ‘Well, we're creating a panel so we're not going to grant any clemencies,’….Okay, now you have the panel, so expectations have been ramped up so high that there will be ongoing, rolling clemency that I do expect that's going to happen.”
Zeidman and his team represent around 70 New Yorkers with applications pending with the governor’s office. On Wednesday, two of the sentence commuations granted were to Zeidman’s clients. But for each of his clients who were accepted, dozens others just like them were rejected.
“There is undoubtedly indescribable joy…joy that I think most of us can't even comprehend, but I also know because I'm getting text messages and emails, right now – I'm getting a phone call right now – that there's profound, deep sadness of a level, again, that I think is unimaginable to so many people and families who really hoped that this was the year that their loved one was coming home,” he said.
Among those to have their sentences commuted this week was Stanley Bellamy, a 60-year-old man from Corona who has served over 37 years of a 62-and-half-year to life sentence he received in 1987 after being convicted of murder. Bellamy, who was represented by Zeidman, was 23 at the time of his arrest, and has lived the vast majority of his life in prison.
Stanley Bellamy, who is from Corona, was one of four New Yorkers granted sentence commuatations on Wednesday. File photo via Bahar Ansari
While incarcerated, Bellamy earned his GED, associate’s degree and bachleor’s degree and served as a mentor for countless incarcerated men. He has led an anti-littering campaign to reduce the rats and pests in the prison and organized seminars on anti-violence. He’s worked as a teaching assisant and led a computer literacy program.
Bellamy also put together a research paper based on his experiences in the groups and classes he organized while incarcerated.
“The vast majority of adult men return to school because they want to better themselves,” Bellamy told the Eagle in 2018. “I hear them crying and complaining all the time, but when I started doing my paper, I understood that they’re coming to better themselves.”
Zeidman noted that while Bellamy has clearly worked to better himself from behind bars, there was always a worry that the governor – and any other governor, for that matter – would lack the political will to grant clemency to someone with a serious conviction.
“I am deeply appreciative that the people that she commuted sentences for were indeed convicted of very serious crimes and that she wasn't afraid to do that,” he said. “To me, that signals that the door does remain open, that people who think, ‘Well look, I got 50 to life, I was convicted of very serious crimes I'm never getting out.’ Well, not necessarily.”
