Lawmakers look to codify clemency reforms
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Lawmakers and advocates are pushing to pass a new bill that would codify many of the clemency reforms Governor Kathy Hochul committed to in 2021. AP file photo by Mel Evans
By Jacob Kaye
On Christmas Eve of 2021, Governor Kathy Hochul committed to changing the way her office handles clemency cases. Though some of the changes have yet to see the light of day, her office announced that others have begun to be implemented in the year since her announcement.
But now, several lawmakers and a group of advocates are calling on the legislature to reform New York’s clemency process themselves, changing what they say is an “underused, non-transparent and unaccountable” power that’s granted to the governor alone.
Gathering virtually on Monday, they called on the State Senate and Assembly to pass, and the governor to sign, the Clemency Justice Act. The bill, which is sponsored by Senator Zellnor Myrie and Assemblymember Michaelle Solages, would establish rules and procedures that would apply to multiple stages of the clemency process. Currently, the way clemency cases are handled are determined by whichever governor is in office.
“It is clear that the governor has the power to free people who have paid their dues, people who pose no public safety threat, people who are in danger of being deported – all of that lies solely within the province of the governor's office,” Myrie said on Monday. “What we are doing today is encouraging her and anybody that occupies that space to use that power to be transparent about that power, to inform people about where they are in the process to protect our most vulnerable from the collateral consequences of being incarcerated.”
“This shouldn't be controversial,” he added.
The bill, which is co-sponsored by Queens Senators Kristen Gonzalez and Julia Salazar and Assemblymembers Khaleel Anderson, Catalina Cruz, Zohran Mamdani, Jeffrion Aubry and Jessica González-Rojas, has previously been introduced but has yet to make it past the floor of the legislature.
“We look forward to getting this across the finish line this year,” Myrie said. “I believe that we can do it.”
Under the bill, the governor’s office would be required to send regular notices to applicants detailing the status of their application.
It would also allow for applicants to attempt to expedite their clemency request by granting them the ability to communicate the urgent need for release from prison or a pardon in their application – some clemency applicants are facing deportation for their previous charges or are facing illnesses while incarcerated.
The bill would also require the governor’s office to provide the public with data on the number of people who applied for clemency and their demographic information.
There are few other options for those applying for clemency to either get their name cleared or to be granted release from prison. But getting one’s clemency application granted is difficult.
New York governors typically grant clemencies around the holiday season, and rarely grant more than a dozen despite receiving thousands of applications per year. From 2017 to 2020, over 6,400 clemency applications were submitted to the governor’s office and around 1.5 percent of those were approved, according to the Clemency Coalition of New York.
“Our failed clemency process leaves their lives hanging in the balance as their families and communities are forced to deal with the domino effect of our cruel immigration and carceral systems, financial instability, loss of housing, mental and emotional distress and so much more,” said Socheatta Meng, a co-coordinator with the Clemency Coalition of New York.
The specifics of the bill don’t differ much from the reforms Hochul promised and began to roll out over the past year.
Following years of calls to reform the clemency process, Hochul said in December 2021 she would be “committed to increased transparency and accountability in this process going forward.” That year, she granted 10 clemency applications – nine of which were pardons and one of which was a sentence commutation.
The governor revealed the names of half a dozen people who have formed the state’s first-ever Clemency Advisory Panel. The panel 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 formerly incarcerated or who was previously granted clemency, as advocates had hoped. However, it's likely that advisory panel members with lived experiences will soon be appointed, sources with knowledge of the panel told the Eagle.
The panel, which advocates have criticized as a way for the governor to distance herself from clemency decisions, first convened in October and is in the process of scheduling its first regular meeting.
In the same vein as the Clemency Justice Act, Hochul has 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 last 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.
Hochul did not release the number of pending and rejected applications along with her clemency announcement in December, a reform she promised the year prior and one that would be put in place should the Clemency Justice Act pass.
As of December, there were around 1,300 clemency applications pending with the governor’s office. Around two-thirds of those requests were for sentence commutations.
Steve Zeidman, the director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at the CUNY School of Law, said the bill is necessary to codify the many reforms Hochul has promised.
“We want to make it a statutory obligation,” Zeidman said. “At this point, it’s still based on the governor’s whim, as to what to do and when to do it.”
While Zeidman, whose clinic accounts for the majority of sentence commutations granted in the past several years, is supportive of the legislation, he said there were parts of it, specifically the urgency clause, that don’t sit well with him.
“I think every one of these clemency requests I have ever seen is urgent,” Zeidman said. “I thought [the urgency provision] was unfortunate. How would the governance people do that? How would they rank what's important and urgent and where do they put the rest – on the back-burner?”
“I think that just allows itself to be defined by whoever is the decision maker at the time,” he added.
