Governor Cuomo issues pardon today to 2015 Cohort JustLeadershipUSA Leader, Alvaro Khalil Cumberbatch and Antonio Argibay, 62, currently the sole proprietor of a New York City-based architecture firm. In New York State, legislative change occurs at a devastatingly slow pace, even when both houses of the Legislature are in agreement. The communities disproportionately impacted by incarceration know this truism most intimately. Over the past two decades, New York has undertaken steps to reversing the trends of mass incarceration by markedly reducing its correctional population and implementing needed reforms to the state’s response to drug offenses and addiction. However, as other states laud New York’s leadership in the area of criminal justice reform, we must also recognize its shortcomings. The individual scars of unjust sentencing continues to fester for many people in prison who are beyond the scope of recent reforms, but remain incarcerated with significant societal and personal costs. Clemency – most notably manifested through executive pardons and sentence commutations or reductions – provides a necessary safety valve in the criminal justice system that grants Governor Cuomo the power to correct injustices and grant mercy to deserving people in prison who otherwise lack legal recourse for release. Both constitutionally protected and strengthened by historical precedent, our founders envisioned clemency as an important mechanism to alleviate individual cases of human suffering by serving as an executive check on overly punitive criminal sanctions imposed by legislatures and judges. Recognizing the need to reverse the trend of mass incarceration and to blunt the impact of draconian federal drug laws, President Obama recently announced a groundbreaking initiative to expand the number of people in Federal prison who are eligible and streamline federal clemency applications. This initiative will hopefully reinvigorate the Federal clemency process by providing much needed transparency and prioritization of the most deserving candidate for sentence commutations. Just as New York has spearheaded a national movement in reversing trends of mass incarceration, we must also lead the country in developing a reinvigorated clemency process that is available to all deserving individuals who are currently incarcerated. Over the past few years, there has been a sharp decrease in applications for clemency from a high of 1,269 applications in 2010 to 171 applications in 2014. To that end, in addition to announcing today’s pardons, Governor Cuomo unveiled a new website, ny.gov/clemency, to act as a central resource for those eligible for clemency to apply. #JLUSA applauds the Governor for this courageous move. ---Glenn E. Martin, Founder, JustLeadershipUSA
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 19:45:27 +0000
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