Gov. Phil Murphy quoted scripture and spirituals before a largely Black and brown audience at the St. James AME Church on Martin Luther King Boulevard in Newark on Wednesday, at a Juneteenth Day signing of an executive order creating a new clemency initiative.
“It will make our process for granting legal relief to New Jerseyans fairer, more equitable and far more accessible,” Murphy said. “Here in New Jersey, receiving a pardon or having your sentence commuted was not a matter of either fairness or objectivity. It was a matter of who you knew and how well connected you were to those in power.”
There have been just over 100 pardons or commutations over the last 30 years in New Jersey. While Murphy’s executive order doesn’t change that immediately, it establishes a six-member clemency advisory board and criteria for expedited consideration of clemency requests.
“The members of the board will consider applications for clemency on an ongoing basis and ultimately offer impartial recommendations on who should be granted a pardon or commutation,” Murphy said. “Importantly this executive order will also spell out the categories of individuals who will receive expedited review by the clemency advisory board.”
Young offenders involved in nonviolent crimes, victims of sexual abuse and those most adversely affected by the “war on drugs” will get priority.
Murphy said it will be six months before the first recommendations reach his desk.
