A Year in Review: Illinois Governor Pritzker’s Executive Clemency Record

Ever since Governor J.B. Pritzker took office a year ago those who represent individuals petitioning for clemency wondered how he would exercise his clemency authority.

Would Gov. Pritzker take a page out of former Democratic Gov. Quinn’s playbook (as hoped) and grant roughly one-third of the clemency petitions reviewed? Or, would Gov. Pritzker follow former Republican Gov. Rauner’s lead and grant a mere 5 to 6% of the clemency petitions reviewed?

Gov. Pritzker’s Year-End Clemency Shout Out

For most of Gov. Pritzker’s first year in office, there was little clemency news. At the end of August 2019, Gov. Pritzker issued his first clemency to Miguel Perez Jr., an Army Vet.

Mr. Perez’s clemency received lots of news coverage, in part because his first clemency petition had been denied by Gov. Rauner and, due to his felony drug conviction, deportation proceedings had been initiated against him. In a separate posting, I will discuss when clemency is effective in stopping an immigration removal order.

Cannabis Clemencies Lead the Way

No further clemency action was taken by Gov. Pritzker until December 31, 2019. On that day, Gov. Pritzker pardoned 11,017 low-level misdemeanor cannabis convictions (involving 30 grams or less). This action was taken pursuant to the cannabis decriminalization law, scheduled to go into effect the next day.

According to the Governor’s office, these convictions covered cases from 92 Illinois counties. Overall, Illinois has 102 counties. Cook County was not among the 92 counties.

Only One Non-Sealable Offense Receives Clemency

The governor also granted clemency to 20 individuals who had formally filed for clemency in 2019. Of these petitions, four involved misdemeanor crimes, the rest were felonies. Nine of the petitions involved cases dating from 2000 or later. The most recent case involved a 2011 conviction for misdemeanor retail theft. Twelve of the petitions involved cases dating from 1975 to 1999.

Noteworthy, only one clemency petition involved an offense not sealable under Illinois law: misdemeanor domestic battery.

Since 2017, most crimes are sealable in Illinois, save for a handful of offenses (DUI, sex crimes, domestic violence, animal cruelty). Now that most crimes are eligible for sealing, fewer people need to petition for clemency if they want to avoid being judged for the rest of their lives for mistakes they may or may not have made years earlier.

Policy on Reinstating FOID Card Rights

Based on the information released on the 20 clemency recipients, it is unclear what Gov. Pritzker’s policy is on reinstating someone’s FOID card (gun) rights.

Under federal and Illinois law, someone who commits a felony -- any felony -- automatically loses their right to lawfully own a gun. Several misdemeanor crimes under Illinois law will also lead to the loss of one’s gun rights (e.g., violation of an order of protection).

Under Gov. Quinn, if you wanted your gun rights reinstated, you had to ask that the right be reinstated. Gov. Rauner instituted a policy of automatically reinstating a person’s gun rights whenever he granted someone clemency.

In time, hopefully Gov. Pritzker will let us know his policy on reinstating gun rights. Until then, anyone seeking reinstatement of their gun rights through the clemency process should make sure to ask.

Is Gov. Pritzker a Champion for Clemency?

The jury is still out on how often Gov. Pritzker will exercise his clemency authority.

At the end of Gov. Rauner’s first year in office, based on the number of petitions he’d granted and denied, only 3.6% of petitioners received clemency.

Because we don’t know how many clemency petitions Gov. Pritzker has denied, if any, there’s no way to compute his rate of approval. All we know is that 21 people were granted clemency in 2019.

If someone were to ask me today: “What are my chances of obtaining clemency from Gov. Pritzker?” I would tell them that the Governor hasn’t left leave enough tea leaves for me read -- to help decipher a pattern of grants and denials.

Here’s hoping Gov. Pritzker drinks a lot of tea in 2020!