TCR Breaking News: New Jersey Governor to Announce Major Clemency Initiative at St. James, Newark on Juneteenth

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said he will “make history” and set a record with “systematic, category-driven” clemencies he'll launch on Juneteenth. “Somebody recently wrote that I had gone the longest of any governor in the state's history … without pardoning anybody, and that's probably true. That's going to change,” Murphy said Wednesday on WNYC’s monthly call-in show, “Ask Governor Murphy.” “We're going to set a different record and we're going to kick it off next week,” he added. Murphy said his plan will be a “life-changing, systematic, category driven process,” but didn’t say which specific types of crimes or categories of individuals he’ll be focusing his clemencies on. He offered the example of nonviolent offenders whose sentences are set to end within within six months to a year as a group that might get consideration for a mass clemency. Murphy said he also plans to consider individual cases. “This will be a game-changer. This will transform people's lives,” he said. Murphy said he's planning to make the announcement at St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church in Newark on Juneteenth, the June 19 holiday marking the day in 1865 when federal troops informed enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, of the end of the Civil War and their legal freedom. The pastor of St. James AME Church, Rev. Dr. Ronald Slaughter is the Vice Chair of the New Jersey State Parole Board. The governor added that his administration will be setting up an independent commission to help him with a “rigorous process” filled with checks and balances. “If somebody has earned the right to be set free, that deserves consideration. Period,” he said. Since taking office in 2018, Murphy has not taken clemency actions, either through reducing prisoners’ sentences or granting pardons. Murphy’s predecessor, former Gov. Chris Christie, issued 55 clemency orders throughout his time in office. The recipients included a repeat campaign donor who’d been convicted of arson and unlawful sale of a weapon, as well as a woman who said she’d been battered before stabbing her fiancé to death. Christie, a former federal prosecutor, also commuted sentences for several people convicted of gun possession crimes. Murphy first announced during his State of the State address in January that he would undertake a new clemency initiative “that will ensure we live up to our promise as the state for second chances.” The following month, on February’s “Ask Governor Murphy” show on WNYC he said his plan would look at “broad categories of individuals who would automatically be eligible upon application for accelerated consideration” of clemency. “So stay tuned. I think New Jersey is going to make history,” Murphy said Wednesday on WNYC. “I really mean that, in a very good, powerful way.” Click here to subscribe to our YouTube Channel to see past TCR Dialogues.

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