NY governor’s 101-plus pardons and a controversy
NEW YORK — Like many governors, New York’s Andrew Cuomo wasn’t known for granting clemency. Until last week.
In a single day, the Democrat pardoned 101 people convicted as teenagers of nonviolent crimes and granted clemency to a dozen other people — including a chance at parole for a onetime revolutionary involved in a Brinks armoured-car holdup that led to the deaths of two police officers and a security guard.
Cuomo set out in 2015 to systematize and ramp up consideration of clemency bids, including by enlisting volunteer lawyers to help people apply. The pardon program for former 16- and 17-year-old convicts, in itself, is ultimately expected to aid over 10,000 people.
But his controversial decision to commute ex-radical Judith Clark’s sentence may test the openness to reprieves in New York, a state experts have considered one of the most guarded with clemency.