"Cuomo's Clemency and Cruelty of False Hope"

The title of this post is the headline of this effective commentary authored by Steven Zeidman appearing in the Gotham Gazette. Here are excerpts:

In 2015, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a project to provide pro bono legal services to prisoners seeking clemency.  The governor explained that this was “a critical step toward a more just, more fair, and more compassionate New York,” and that he sought to “identify those deserving of a second chance and to help ensure that clemency is a more accessible and tangible reality.”

Two years later, the governor re-emphasized his interest in clemency via a press release stating that “Family members of individuals serving prison sentences are encouraged to apply for clemency on behalf of their family member.”

This expressed interest in clemency, more specifically clemency in the form of a commutation of sentence, reverberated across New York’s patchwork of 50 state prisons.  Men and women serving lengthy sentences with no chance of ever obtaining their freedom now had hope.  People who spent their time wasting away in their cells began to re-engage with programs.  Family visits reflected renewed promise of the possibility of unification beyond the prison walls.

In short order, CUNY Law School’s clemency project received more than 1,800 requests for help with clemency applications.

Yet not a single person had their sentence commuted in 2019 despite an abundance of robust and meritorious applications.  Then on Friday, January 3, 2020 at 6:15 p.m., an auspicious time for any gubernatorial announcement, Governor Cuomo revealed that clemency requests for commutations had been granted to two people.  Two people out of thousands of applicants.

Apparently, the promise of making clemency an “accessible and tangible reality” was nothing more than a cruel, soul-crushing hoax....

In present terms, clemency is the most readily available means to repair the nationally acknowledged crisis of mass incarceration that has devastated communities of color.  Mass incarceration is not just about unnecessarily incarcerating masses of people, but rather unnecessarily keeping masses of people in prison for decades.  Clemency is a means to address that brutal reality.

Furthermore, while clemency is usually cast as an act of mercy, we all stand to gain when clemency is granted to deserving people.  They are reunited with their families.  They care for aging parents.  They are the true credible messengers who mentor young people who might be on the wrong path.  They have jobs and contribute to the economy. And the taxpayer no longer needs to pay for the medical care required for older people in prison, among other costs. Liberal application of clemency makes us all safer and better.

Many of the men and women who submitted clemency applications based on renewed hope inspired by Governor Cuomo’s words are now saying that false hope is worse than no hope.  The wife of one of those men put it best in a tweet: “My husband wrote that he, his good friends, and more than 100 others sat on the edge of their metal beds all month [of December] waiting...PLEASE recognize the strides these men have made and show them mercy and use your redeeming power as the leader of this state.”

While clemency is typically cast as an end of year event consistent with holiday sentiments of mercy, charity, and forgiveness, surely there must be room for mercy, charity, and forgiveness more than once a year.  And surely, there are more than two people among the 45,000 in New York State prisons who deserve the measure of mercy afforded by a sentence commutation.

I am pleased to see this effort to call out Gov Cuomo for talking the talk, but then failing to walk the walk on clemency. The same also can and should be said about Prez Trump's clemency record. It is now more than 19 months since Prez Trump started talking about reviewing thousands of cases for possible clemency relief, but he has only granted a handful since then.

Prior related post:

• Despite creating lots of clemency hope, NY Gov Cuomo delivers little clemency relief