Today, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn decided on 124 pardon petitions, granting 38 and denying 86.  Some of the offenses that received the pardons included burglary, forgery, and various drug convictions.  Since taking office, Quinn has granted 1,113 petitions for executive clemency and denied 1,934.

As always, a congratulations must go out to those that had their clemency petition granted!  A lot of vetting is done to ensure that those who receive clemency have truly rehabilitated, so if you are lucky enough to receive it then it was well earned.  This Labor Day weekend will mark the beginning of the next chapter in your life without a criminal record.

In the course of my work as pardon/expungement attorney, I occasionally encounter individuals that argue that my clients should not get to clear their criminal records.  It’s a do-the-crime-do-the-time argument where “the time” extends beyond the formal sentence into any future repercussions of their offense, regardless of proportionality.  Aside from the general vindictiveness of that mentality, this position also does a disservice to society as a whole. 

That is why I enjoyed reading Neil Steinberg’s recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times, which takes up the defense of a University of Illinois instructor who previously served time in federal prison.  The instructor had been part of a group that had committed several felonies, including a bank robbery in which a person was killed.  The article goes on to examine his life after the events of that case, and argues that his rehabilitation should carry more weight than his mistakes.

The lesson here is that even smart, creative people make mistakes.  While it is great that this instructor was still able to succeed, there are many for whom the burden of a criminal record is a life sentence.  Right now, there are young folks with world-class potential to become professors, doctors, scientists, etc. and are picking up criminal records.  Many of them will face so many roadblocks from their conviction that they never realize this potential.  You can extend this reasoning further and find that there are many hard-working, rehabilitated people that are unemployed or underemployed because of background checks finding a mistake they made long ago.  Most might not even realize that they have options to clear their criminal records.  When as a society we allow for great reservoirs of talent to go untapped, we all lose.

Recently, two state legislators announced that they will co-sponsor a bill to eliminate Cook County’s boot camp program.  The main thrust of their opposition to the program comes from a Sun-Times investigation which discovered that some ineligible defendants were given boot camp.  They argue that the program is flawed and fundamentally unfair to those convicted in the rest of the state.

I strongly disagree with their proposal.  For one, conviction rates and sentence severity has always varied from county to county.  So the “fairness” argument rings hollow when the location an offense is committed has always affected how the case will play out.

In my line of work, I have come across many former offenders that truly credit boot camp for turning their life around.  Boot camp serves as the wake-up call that these people need to rehabilitate.  In addition, because those convicted serve months rather than years, they are less of a strain on the overburdened and overfilled Illinois prison system.  But make no mistake, boot camp is no walk in the park.  It is an intensive program, but still allows defendants to avoid the pitfalls of spending years in prison.  It is much easier to rehabilitate when you re-enter the world quickly with a new outlook than it is after you have become habituated to prison life.

Even if some people convicted were wrongly given boot camp, abolishing the whole program amounts to throwing the baby out with the bath water.  Now that there has been so much attention brought to the sentencing guidelines as it relates to boot camp, I do not imagine that there will be such widespread error in sentencing anymore.  If there are still flaws, then work to fix them rather than lazily throwing out something that does have positive results.

Every fall, one high-profile pardon case predictably dominates the news cycle. Every news broadcast will show footage of the pardoning and every newspaper will feature a blurb about it. I’m speaking, of course, of the annual pardon of a Thanksgiving turkey by the president.

Later this month, President Obama will hold a press conference outside the White House and present the turkey that he’s decided to pardon from being executed. It’s meant as a light moment during the holidays, a wholesome White House publicity event akin to the Easter Egg roll. The President usually cracks a few jokes and the press chuckles. (It provided some good material for an episode of the West Wing – the fictional President Bartlet asked before a pardoning, “Won’t I get a reputation for being soft on turkeys?”)

However, as an attorney who represents pardon candidates before the Illinois Governor, I’m not fond of the message the turkey clemency sends to the public. It represents what critics point to as a potential problem with executive pardons – the possibility for the power to be applied arbitrarily. Out of the many turkeys sentenced to death each year, the White House selects one at random to be spared.

This is not how actual pardons are decided. The vast majority of granted pardons, whether on the state or federal level, are for individuals who served their debt to society and have since spent years rehabilitating themselves. By issuing a pardon, the executive office decides to grant them forgiveness for their act, and a second chance with a clean slate. In Illinois, pardon petitions are carefully considered first by the Prisoner Review Board, and then by Governor Quinn and his staff.

So this Thanksgiving, when the President pardons a turkey, just keep in mind the process works a little differently for our non-feathered citizens.

The 2014 Illinois Governor’s race is starting to ramp up, as former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley threw his hat into the ring this week. If state Attorney General Lisa Madigan also decides to run, the incumbent Pat Quinn could end up with a fierce three-way battle in the Democratic primary. And that’s if Quinn decides to run for re-election, which he has not publicly announced yet. There are also several Republican candidates already in the race, including state Treasurer Dan Rutherford and state Senator Kirk Dillard.

Since Governor Quinn has proven himself to be one of the most pro-pardon governors in the country, I have recently heard from clients who are nervous about what will happen if a new governor takes over in 2014. Since 2009, Quinn has steadily worked his way through the backlog of clemency petitions left over from the Blagojevich administration. By regularly issuing decisions and granting those to individuals who have paid their debt to society and shown rehabilitation, he shows that he is respectfully reviewing the requests. Would Governor Daley, Madigan, Rutherford or Dillard act similarly? Can we point to anything in their experience that indicates a predilection to approve or deny pardons? Would any of them go the route of Blagojevich or Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and ignore the responsibility entirely?

The simple (but yes, unsatisfying) answer: we just don’t know. Granting pardons is one of the few powers that is entirely up to the discretion of the chief executive. Furthermore, on both the state and federal level, historically it has not been a partisan issue. You cannot predict how a leader will act on pardons based on his party affiliation.

Because of the uncertainty over who will take over the governor’s job, I have heard from a few individuals who are wondering if they should hurry and submit a pardon petition immediately, with the hopes it will come before Quinn while he’s still in office. My answer is that your best chance for receiving a pardon will be if you have shown years of productive rehabilitation and have taken steps to get your life back on track. If that’s not the case, it will be difficult to get your petition granted. The best time to submit a pardon is when your life is in the right place for it, not based on who is in office at the time. If you would like to discuss the merits of your particular case further, give me a call for a consultation.