Extensive account of clemency and the clemency process in Minnesota

The New York Times has this extensive new article on clemency in Minnesota (and elsewhere) titled “‘I Want to Be Forgiven. I Just Want to Be Forgiven.’: When the Minnesota Board of Pardons meets, supplicants have 10 minutes to make the case for mercy.” I recommend the long piece’s intricate discussion of the Minnesota clemency process, and here is an excerpt from the article discussing clemency more generally:

No one can expect mercy. No one has the right to be forgiven. Pardons live beyond the parameters of the criminal code’s black-and-white text. They are, by nature, extraordinary.

Rooted in part in the ancient doctrine that monarchs derive power directly from God, pardons are a discretionary tool often given to the executive branch — the president and the governor — to override court-ordered sanctions: to shorten a prison sentence, restore civil rights or eliminate the obligation to identify oneself as a felon.

They are intended to provide relief from what Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist Papers, called the “necessary severity” of the law — a kind of safety valve against injustices inherent in justice systems….

There are other systems for restoring legal and social status, including diversion programs, expungement and record-sealing. Pardons, though, carry the emotional heft of society’s forgiveness. And depending on the jurisdiction, their application can be transparent or mysterious, reasoned or arbitrary — even questionable, with some reformers calling them a capricious relic….

Two generations ago, as drug-related violence plagued many cities, presidents and governors adopted tough-on-crime stances that, among other consequences, led to fewer pardons. The many social benefits that might accrue from mercy were determined not to be worth the political risk. According to the nonprofit Collateral Consequences Resource Center, the pardon became “a shadow of its once-robust self.”

“It is a national struggle in legislatures to figure out how to deal with this enormous number of people with a criminal record who can’t get jobs or housing,” said Margaret Love, the founder of the resource center and a former United States pardon attorney. “We’re trying to reintegrate people, but we still won’t forgive them.”