Sunday, December 22, 2024
Sunday Reflection: Mercy at Advent
About eight years ago, I got interested in the clemency process here in Minnesota. I began to attend the pardon hearings, and was discouraged by what I saw. Few people seemed to be applying for pardons and almost none for commutations (which shorten a sentence being served in prison), and no wonder-- the state granted only about 20-30 a year. That was about 10% of the total granted annually in South Carolina, which has a smaller population (and is, you know, not really known for progressive criminal justice). We even were well behind the 70-100 granted yearly in South Dakota, which has 1/6th the population and is far more conservative. Minnesota had a mercy problem.
Being an academic with a clemency clinic, my students and I researched the issue to assess the problems causing the Minnesota mercy dearth. I identified three primary roadblocks. First, everyone had to appear personally before the Governor, Attorney General and Chief Justice and their limited time created a narrow pipeline. Second, there was a requirement that those three vote unanimously to grant a petition. Third, most grants were under a bizarre construct called the "Pardon Extraordinary," which wasn't very extraordinary-- just a regular pardon with more rules.
After watching this for several cycles, in 2019 I wrote this piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, based in part on research done by my students at St. Thomas, who identified South Dakota as a good model. I suggested three things: Use majority instead of unanimous votes, have a commission conduct hearings to allow more cases be heard. and ditch the "pardon extraordinary."
In 2020, we got buy-in and support for a bill we drafted from Gov. Tim Walz, who made his support public. We didn't get it through the legislature, though.
I kept trying. And for three years, I failed. It was hard to fail over and over.
Then in 2023, the stars aligned, and we got the legislation through by bundling it with a number of other proposals in criminal justice, as various groups offered a common slate. Our bill was sponsored by MN Rep. Esther Agbaje, who did a great job with it-- and it passed! I later wrote about that in The Atlantic, and Dan Barry wrote a great piece for the New York Times about the first hearing under the old system but with only a 2-1 vote required to grant.
Friday of this week was the first hearing under the new system, as the Pardon Board (the governor, attorney general and chief justice) considered cases passed to them with recommendations from the new Clemency Commission (which had conducted the hearings).
I was anxious to see how it would go. I was stuck in traffic headed over there, and would barely make it for the 9:30 start. I jammed my car into a snowbank across the street from the hearing room and tried to pay. The machine rejected every card I had, though, so I gave up and took my chances.
In the room, something amazing happened. The Board accepted every one of the recommendation made by the Commission, and granted 32 petitions-- more than they had in a year not so long ago (and this would be just one of four such hearings a year). I was elated at this sudden flood of mercy. They did make some of the grants contingent on petitioners paying off parking tickets-- a requirement I cringed at, thinking about my illegally-parked car.
After the hearing, I walked up to Gov. Walz. He smiled and asked "So is that what you wanted to see?"
I nodded and said "You betcha," because that's what we say in Minnesota. But I was thinking "Oh, hell yes!"
I talked to some others, including Keith Ellison and some old friends in the fight. Then I walked out the big metal doors into the cold air, across the street to the snowbank hugging my car, I leaned over to see if I got a ticket. It turned out I received grace, too. But... maybe this time I appreciated it a little more than usual.
