Gov. Pritzker Grants Few Clemency Petitions in 2023 (Leaving Many Hopeful Petitioners Still Waiting)
Last year there wasn’t much to cheer about if you were waiting on a clemency decision in Illinois.
In 2023, Gov. Pritzker ruled on 563 petitions – the vast majority of those were filed by people in prison seeking a sentence commutation. Only 44 of those petitions were granted: 29 pardons [1] and 15 sentence commutations for an overall grant rate of 7.8%.
Clemency Backlog Persist as Filings Out Pace Rulings
At the start of 2023, 2,131 clemency petitions were pending. If the number of petitions filed in 2023 remained a pace with the petitions filed in 2022 (1,154), the current backlog of petitions could exceed 2,500.
It’s doubtful that Gov. Pritzker will pick up the pace (in his clemency rulings) this year. The race for president is already in full gear, the presumed candidates already identified. The governor is on President Biden’s reelection committee, and Chicago is hosting the Democratic Convention. That’s a full plate by anyone’s estimation.
Sealing Before Clemency
If the case you are seeking a pardon for is eligible to seal and you haven’t sealed it yet, it might make more sense to petition to seal your record this year and hold off filing for clemency until 2025.
In at least in one county, Cook County, the failure to seal a sealable offense prior petitioning for clemency is grounds to object. Let’s be clear, there is no requirement that a record be sealed before petitioning. Additionally, sealing does not disqualify you from later seeking a pardon or vice-a-versa.
A second reason why it could be beneficial to seal is the length of time between filing and decision. As we speak, some petitioners have been waiting upwards two to three years for a ruling. If the record is sealed, barriers to employment, housing, licensing, and college admission (e.g., nursing school) will be eliminated for most.
The last reason to seal is that it gives you a preview of how the State will respond to a clemency request. This is particularly true for violent offenses or cases where the State’s version of the facts differs sharply from that of the petitioner’s (and no complete evidentiary record exists because the case ended in a plea agreement).
Make Sure the Relief You’re Seeking is Attainable Through Clemency
Because most criminal convictions in Illinois are eligible to seal, if you’re thinking about filing for a pardon it would be useful to get answers to the following questions:
Is the relief you’re seeking attainable? [2]
Are the odds of being pardoned worth the cost to file? [3]
Compared to sealing, clemency is a lengthy and costly process. A free legal consultation with A Bridge Forward to answer these questions is always an email or call away.
[1] One of the pardons Gov. Pritzker granted turned on the petitioner’s actual innocence.
[2] As previously highlighted, Gov. Pritzker does not reinstate gun rights unless the petitioner is seeking relief for an immigration-related matter.
[3] As previously observed, no governor since Pat Quinn (when I first started tracking clemency data, a period of 15 years) has pardoned or commuted a sentence for someone convicted of a sex crime. For that reason, I turned down a clemency referral to represent a Dupage County man with a felony child sexual assault conviction.