By Jacob Kaye<\/p>\n
Governor Kathy Hochul declined to commute the sentence of any of the more than 1,000 people in New York\u2019s prisons who applied for clemency when she granted half a dozen pardons on Friday, angering advocates who say the governor has all but abandoned her promise to reform the state\u2019s clemency process.<\/p>\n
Continuing a trend that began in 2024, the governor did not grant clemency to any of the 1,040 people who have asked to have their prison sentences commuted on Friday. She instead granted pardons to six New Yorkers who \u201ccontinue to be negatively impacted by their criminal conviction(s) despite having successfully served their sentence(s) many years ago,\u201d according to a press release announcing the pardons. <\/p>\n
Among those granted a pardon was Sae Joon Park, a Purple Heart recipient who was convicted of drug possession in Queens in 2007 and a bail jumping charge in 2009. In 2025, federal officials ordered Park to leave the country and return to Korea, where he was born, or face deportation. He decided to self-deport, according to reporting by the New York Times. It\u2019s unclear if Hochul\u2019s pardon will allow Park to return to the U.S. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday, I am granting clemency to six individuals who have displayed positive changes in their lives and will dedicate themselves to bettering their communities \u2014 they earned their second chance through rehabilitation and can now establish their futures once again,\u201d Hochul said in a statement.<\/p>\n
But while Hochul has embraced pardons \u2013 one of two forms the governor\u2019s clemency powers can take \u2013 she\u2019s effectively abandoned the second form of clemency: sentence commutations. <\/p>\n
Between August 2024 and August 2026, Hochul commuted the sentences of two incarcerated New Yorkers, a quarter of the number of sentence commutations she granted from 2022 through the midway point of 2024. <\/p>\n
The lack of sentence commutations has angered advocates, who argue that while pardons are meaningful to those who receive them, commutations are more urgently needed. A large number of incarcerated New Yorkers applying for a commutation have spent decades behind bars after being issued massive sentences in the \u201880s and \u201890s, when mandatory minimum sentencing and a tough-on-crime mentality led to a spike in the state\u2019s prison population. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we welcome the six pardons granted today and celebrate for those who received them and their families, we are profoundly disappointed that Governor Hochul has yet again failed to grant a single commutation to any of the many worthy individuals languishing in state prisons,\u201d Stanley Bellamy, a Queens man who was granted clemency by Hochul in 2022 and who now works as an organizer with the Release Aging People in Prison Campaign, said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs a recipient of clemency from Governor Hochul myself, and a person who long ago took full responsibility for a violent crime and committed myself to ending cycles of violence in our communities, I am living proof that people can and do change \u2013 and will use the opportunities afforded us to serve others,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
The major drop-off in the number of sentence commutations granted by Hochul comes as the Democratic governor is running for reelection against Republican Bruce Blakeman, who has regularly accused Hochul of being soft on crime. <\/p>\n
In December, Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, criticized Hochul\u2019s support for legislation that required a formerly incarcerated New Yorker to be appointed to the Commission on Correction, the state\u2019s prison watchdog agency, claiming the governor was putting \u201cthe interests of criminals ahead of law-abiding New Yorkers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve Zeidman, a professor at the CUNY School of Law and the director of its Criminal Defense Clinic, said that he believes Hochul\u2019s apparent reluctance to commute sentences is the result of a \u201ccowardly political calculation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI see it as making a political calculation \u2013 if I use my clemency power in any meaningful way, I will subject myself to criticism that I am not willing to withstand or to rebut,\u201d Zeidman said. \u201cTo me, that’s the only way to look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The professor, whose clinic has around 100 clemency applications pending with the governor\u2019s office, said Hochul should approach clemency in the same way President Donald Trump has, by granting pardons and sentence commutations in large numbers. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe should say, \u2018Yeah, Blakeman, come after me but this is why I did it, because it\u2019s the right thing to do\u2026And no, I\u2019m not afraid, I\u2019m not a coward, I\u2019m not like you,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cBut rather than go that route, she puts her head in the sand and issues a couple of pardons on a Friday afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bellamy compared Hochul\u2019s apparent reluctance to use her full clemency powers to Trump, who has been criticized for pardoning and commuting the sentences of a number of his political allies. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile President Trump is using clemency as a cash cow and a grab bag for political favors, Governor Hochul must demonstrate that this critical tool can be used properly to correct injustices and reunite families,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the governor defended the latest round of clemencies and touted some of the reforms Hochul has made to the process, including the creation of a clemency advisory panel, more robust communications with clemency applicants, and the granting of clemency on a rolling basis \u2013 clemencies were typically granted only around Christmas in the years before Hochul took office. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe safety of all New Yorkers \u2013 including the staff and incarcerated individuals in our prisons \u2013 is a top priority for Governor Hochul,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cThis administration remains committed to a fair and thorough clemency process, and working to reduce recidivism and enhance reentry services for previously incarcerated individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are around 1,560 pending clemency applications, according to the governor\u2019s office. Among them are 1,040 sentence commutation applications and 524 pardon applications. Around 260 of those applications were submitted in 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jacob Kaye Governor Kathy Hochul declined to commute the sentence of any of the more than 1,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-334909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}