The California Governor granted clemency to 21 prisoners as the Covid-19 outbreaks have continued to infect thousands behind bars in a mounting public health crisis.
Gavin Newsom, who has faced mounting pressure to release people en masse from state jails, announced Friday that he is granting commutes to 21 people, a move that reduces their sentences and creates a potential pathway for their release. It also announced forgiveness grants for 13 people, a step that restores some rights for those who have already served sentences.
Proponents said the move was profoundly inadequate given the scale of the Covid crisis, which has infected more than 4,000 people in state jails, resulting in 20 deaths. The state announced more than 1,000 new cases in the past two weeks, an increase advocates and experts say was avoidable and is the result of the state’s negligence.
The recent outbreaks in two jails, San Quentin and Corcoran, occurred after authorities transferred hundreds of people to those facilities. They came from a prison with the largest outbreak in the state and were not tested first.
Many of the new forgiveness grants were for people convicted and imprisoned as children. Two of the pardons also involve California residents at risk of deportation due to their criminal record. Forgiving their convictions means they are no longer considered eligible to be removed from the US under immigration law.
One woman, Ny Nourn, is a survivor of domestic violence who was convicted of second-degree murder when an abusive boyfriend shot and killed someone. She was at risk of being deported to Cambodia, a country she had never been to, and now works as a community organizer in California. Another pardoning donor is Sophea Om, who was already deported to Cambodia in 2011. The pardon would potentially allow Om, who was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, to be reunited with her son, a US citizen.
The commutations, given to people serving life sentences, make some of them eligible for parole hearings in the coming year. However, they will not be released immediately and there is no guarantee that they will be able to return home. Of the 44 commutes Newsom has granted since he became governor last year, most of them are still incarcerated today, said Colby Lenz, an advocate for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners.
At the start of the pandemic, Newsom initially allowed the early release of 3,500 people nearing the end of their sentences, but has since made no large-scale efforts to reduce the prison population in response to the virus. It has also repeatedly refused to use its leniency authority to grant releases to elderly and medically vulnerable people who are at high risk of death.
Routine leniency grants for a handful of people have not made a dent in the overcrowded prison population and are also not preventing the virus outbreaks, Lenz said. “The state has done nothing to prioritize saving the lives of those most vulnerable to Covid’s death … Newsom has the power to save lives with a stroke of its pen, and shamefully it does not.” We are raising money for funerals instead of reconnecting families. ”
Several sick and elderly women who are also survivors of abuse and violence recently spoke to The Guardian about their pleas to the Governor to return home. On May 1, the state treasurer also sent Newsom a list of 25 women who have active commutation requests, as well as accommodations and housing programs waiting for them if release is granted.
But none of these women was on Newsom’s list on Friday, and some remain housed in jails with continued outbreaks.
Patricia Wright, 68, is battling terminal cancer and is currently on chemotherapy, and was placed in isolation this week as Covid-19 spreads at the California Institution for Women (CIW), said her sister, Chantel. Bonet on Friday. She has months to live. “She says, ‘I am very scared because I have seen them carry people on stretchers.’ All week she has been saying she feels worse than ever. “
Wright’s son Alfey Ramdhan, 37, said Friday that he just wanted the opportunity to spend time with his mother in his final months: “I prefer that he die in my arms, that he die with me, where his soul can rest.” . so you can be calm when you last breathe. “
The pardons have also been inadequate given the number of people vulnerable to deportation, but have not been protected by Newsom, said Sarah Lee, an advocate for the Asian Law Caucus (LAC). Although California is a sanctuary state intended to limit collaboration with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) Service, the state has continued to transfer dozens of people from prisons to Ice custody, where there are also large shoots of Covid-19.
Lee’s group is currently advocating that the governor protect Chanthon Bun, an immunocompromised refugee who will soon be released from prison, and taken into ice custody. He was not on Newsom’s list of pardons, and activists are asking the governor to block his transfer to Ice.
“The power of clemency is one of the governor’s most important responsibilities,” said Lee. “If you really care about Black Lives Matter, you need to free people.”
Nourn, who was granted pardon, is also an advocate for LAC and Survived and Punished, a prison abolition group. He thanked the governor in a statement on Friday, adding: “I want to ask you to extend clemency to other refugees, immigrants and survivors currently incarcerated and formerly facing deportation like me.”
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