Clemency

Pennsylvania requires unanimous approval from a five-member pardon board before people incarcerated on life sentences can ask the governor for clemency.

The change has brought hope to those who fear dying in prison, while others worry it won’t save them from such a fate.

Terence Richardson and Ferrone Claiborne are coming home after President Joe Biden granted them clemency. The pair spent decades in prison despite being found not guilty of the 1998 murder of a Virginia police officer.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker tried to use the state’s parole board to safely free more people from prison. But after Republican backlash, the board’s work has essentially been frozen.

A group of congress members says Joe Biden should pardon people or commute sentences before his term ends.

Billie Allen says he is an innocent man on death row. Allen and his supporters want President Biden to pardon him before Trump takes office.

State legislators subpoenaed Robert Roberson one day before the state was set to kill him—an act that delayed the execution. Lawmakers are fighting to let Roberson testify before the state House despite objections from the attorney general and governor.

Despite pleas from state lawmakers, Texas will execute Roberson on Oct. 17 unless Governor Greg Abbott grants a reprieve in his case.

Tasha Shelby was sentenced to life in prison for allegedly shaking her fiance’s two-year-old son to death. But the science around “shaken baby syndrome” has unraveled, and the lead witness against her recanted his testimony.

Five women in Mississippi have been incarcerated longer than any others in the state. Each has been denied parole a multitude of times. Here, one of the women shares their stories.

In the early ‘90s, Oklahoma prosecutors claimed Littlejohn and another man had killed someone, even though the victim was shot with a single bullet. A state board has recommended the governor spare Littlejohn’s life.

Lorenzo Johnson, a former boxer, quoted Muhammad Ali in his fight against his wrongful conviction. After reading Johnson’s writing, one of Ali’s children, Khaila, demands that Pennsylvania’s governor clear Johnson’s name.

Politicians often vilify so-called violent criminals. But the “violent felon” label can mean someone committed anything from a murder to a purse-snatching or verbal threat—and doesn’t line up with what science tells us about violence.

But if he loses his appeal and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declines to grant him clemency, he will likely be sent back to prison.

Blind in one eye and at risk of losing vision in the other, 58-year-old Reginald Randolph is now on the verge of being sent to state prison to serve out a maximum of four years in state prison.

Leaving prison often hinges on completing rehabilitative programming. The pandemic caused many of these required courses to be put on hold.

Despite sentencing reforms, hundreds of thousands of people who have been incarcerated over the last several decades are ineligible for parole.

Even with the recent creation of the Juvenile Sentence Review Board, the governor’s process for granting clemency remains unclear.

Advocates have been urging Governor Gavin Newsom to make greater use of his clemency power, especially for older prisoners who are more vulnerable to COVID-19.

Proposed legislation would allow people accused of crimes to tell juries if they had a mental illness, autism spectrum disorder, or an intellectual or developmental disability at the time of a crime. The bill could have helped individuals like Matthew Rushin.

The Board of Pardons unanimously recommended Bruce Norris for a commutation in December, but Tom Wolf had yet to approve it.

As a staff member of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, I fight for all children, especially those impacted by systemic racism in our criminal justice system.

The report found that spread inside correctional facilities contributed to community spread, particularly in California, Florida and Texas.

Rachel Barkow, a respected legal scholar, expert on executive clemency, and former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia would be an ideal choice to start and lead a powerful new program inside the Biden White House.

Despite the growing consciousness around the need for reforms, thousands of prisoners who might also deserve clemency or early release are slipping through the cracks.

Democrats in Congress must still their impulse to legislate restrictions on clemency. Not only would such a law be unconstitutional, but it may deter future presidents from using clemency the way that the framers intended.

Harris, now 72 and blind, had been serving a life sentence for the shooting death of her husband, a man she said had abused her for years. Last month, the Arkansas Parole Board agreed to free her.

Advocates had hoped Governor Tom Wolf would use his executive reprieve power to release thousands of people from prisons in the face of COVID-19.

Harris, now 72 and blind, was sentenced to life in prison in 1985. Since she first started petitioning for executive clemency in 1998, the state’s parole board recommended her for release five times.

The state has recommended the release of 10 women at a coronavirus-ravaged prison—but Governor John Bel Edwards still hasn’t signed the paperwork.

Euka Wadlington was denied clemency by the Department of Justice under Obama. But then he mounted a legal challenge to sentencing enhancements used in his drug case; in April, a federal judge granted his release. Now he’s adjusting to freedom—and life in the coronavirus era.

People are dying in jails and prisons because elected officials hesitated at the worst possible moment.

They tell Tom Wolf that taking any unilateral actions to reduce the state’s prison population would endanger public safety.

There are no good reasons for the president to keep vulnerable people behind bars any longer.

The Office of General Counsel determined that the governor could likely use reprieves to release vulnerable people from prison to control COVID-19’s spread, but the office is advising against it, according to internal emails obtained by The Appeal.

Lawmakers are recognizing the harms of mass incarceration. But some governors are reluctant to use their clemency power to address them.

A year after Alfonzo Riley returned from prison, he’s helping to vet innocence claims.

Unlike other states, Arizona offers minimal early release credits for the prisoners it sends to fight its wildfires.

It’s the first time since 2014 that someone on Georgia’s death row has been granted clemency.