Incarcerated Californians Express Cautious Optimism About New Clemency Proposal |
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Tien Mo is still awaiting a response to her 2017 clemency application. As previously reported in Truthout, at age 20, she was sentenced to life without parole in her classmate’s death. As the years pass, the 44-year-old’s hopes dwindle. Now, a proposed statute gives her renewed optimism.
Clemency typically takes two forms — a pardon, which removes the consequences of a criminal conviction such as possible deportation; or a commutation, which reduces a prison sentence.
In March, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced an additional avenue to commutation. The proposed rules task the parole board with reviewing people six years before their first parole date, conducting a commutation and resentencing (C&R) hearing that may include victims’ families and the district attorney, and then issuing recommendations to both the governor regarding clemency and to the courts regarding resentencing. Currently, the board holds the power to recommend incarcerated individuals for clemency and, upon the governor’s request, investigate applicants. But, said Kelly Savage, the Drop LWOP (Life Without Parole) coordinator and a clemency recipient, the board had stopped doing these reviews in 1994.
During his nearly seven years in office, Newsom has granted 160 commutations.
“The proposed regulations provide the framework that will allow the Board to exercise its authority under section 4812, as well as section 1172.1,” Diana Crofts-Pelayo, the governor’s deputy director of communications, wrote in an email to Truthout. The governor will retain the discretion to grant executive clemency outside this process. During his nearly seven years in office, Newsom has granted 160 commutations.
Crofts-Pelayo did not respond about the number of applications still awaiting decision. The regulations need to be approved by the state’s Office of Administrative Law, a process that can take months.
While the rules exclude those sentenced to death and those who have already had parole hearings, it does not exclude those sentenced to life without parole. “This change gives a lot of hope to ones who have been hopeless such as myself,” Mo wrote in a prison e-message to Truthout. “I am no longer that 18-year-old and I’ve worked hard to not be that person any longer.” Mo has never had a disciplinary infraction during her 24 years in state prison, no small feat given the many petty acts that often lead to sanctions.
Her sentence bars her from a parole hearing, but a C&R hearing would allow her to show those changes.
She’s not the only one hopeful about this........