Gov. Maura Healey’s desk is stacked with pardon and commutation petitions that she could act on at any time, including a “truly exceptional” commutation case to advance in the wake of a 2017 high court ruling around felony murder convictions.
BOSTON (SHNS) – Gov. Maura Healey’s desk is stacked with pardon and commutation petitions that she could act on at any time, including a “truly exceptional” commutation case to advance in the wake of a 2017 high court ruling around felony murder convictions.
There has been increased interest in pardons and commutations since executive clemency was pulled back into the limelight a couple of years ago and Healey released updated clemency guidelines last October, attorneys told the News Service on Tuesday. Pardons grant official forgiveness for crimes, while commutations can lessen the sentences of convicted people.
“The number that have made it to the desk are encouraging,” Quincy attorney Timothy Foley said, adding that he was pleased by the governor’s mega-pardon for simple possession of cannabis earlier this year.
Foley said he was surprised that clemency petitions have not moved at a faster pace, but noted the revised guidelines “certainly widened the net” for who can be eligible, and called it “a long process.”
“Once it starts to move, I think you’ll start to see it move fast. And that’s my hope, anyway,” said Foley, who represented Thomas Koonce in his bid for a commuted sentence in 2022.
Since Healey sent her last batch of pardons in May up to the Governor’s Council, eight clemency petitions have landed on her desk for action, according to a spokesperson for the Parole Board. The Parole Board pre-vets the petitions and makes recommendations to the governor, and the Governor’s Council has final approval power over the petitions the governor endorses.
The Parole Board issued favorable recommendations for seven of them: Thomas Waruzila, David Palazzo, Robert Tober, Anthony Tindal, Mynor-Deane Martino Boland, William Florentino, and Kira Pareseau.
Pareseau’s favorable report was “conditional,” the spokesperson said. The eighth, for Daniel Gagnon, was an “unfavorable” report.
Most of the pending bids are for pardons. Healey has so far advanced 16 pardons. Of those, the independently-elected council has approved 15. The sixteenth — a pardon for William “Chill” Veal’s numerous convictions including assault and battery and conspiracy to commit larceny — proved controversial and has been left hanging in the council office since May, neither approved, rejected, nor withdrawn.
“We have not seen commutations, and I do hope that we will start to see some recommendations for commutations,” unopposed Governor’s Council candidate and public defense attorney Mara Dolan told the News Service on Tuesday.
Gov. Charlie Baker was the last to recommend sentence commutations — for Koonce, Ramadan Shabazz, and William Allen.
In the case of Allen, whose robbery accomplice stabbed the murder victim, he had been convicted of felony-murder under the joint venture theory. His conviction and sentence would not have been possible in the 2020s, his successful commutation claim argued, under the Supreme Judicial Court’s 2017 Brown decision that tightened the standards for felony-murder convictions. But the SJC’s decision did not apply to those already convicted and sentenced.
William Florentino’s bid, which the Parole Board reported out favorably on Aug. 16, is for a commutation. And his attorney, Patricia DeJuneas — who also represented Allen — said their cases are similar and that the board went above and beyond in its recommendation.
“They recommended time served, because he has so much time in and he’s been such an exemplary inmate,” said DeJuneas.
Florentino participated in a liquor store robbery 47 years ago in which his accomplice killed a customer in the shop.
He sits at a crossroads of recent high-profile court decisions, she said, as he falls under both the Brown ruling and the 2024 Mattis decision, in which the Supreme Judicial Court ruled as unconstitutional the imposition of life sentences on certain emerging adults who were aged 18 to 20 when they committed their offense.
DeJuneas said the petition, filed before the Mattis decision came out earlier this year, was initially denied by the Parole Board. But then, she said, “they changed their mind” and endorsed the commutation.
“So the fact that they changed their mind said to me that they want to treat him differently from all the other Mattis people, and because he is so truly exceptional,” she said.
The Boston Globe has covered Florentino’s case multiple times, including a 2022 Yvonne Abraham column that detailed the 1977 Everett liquor store robbery, and a Spotlight investigation from the same year.
“I mean, of course nobody should agree to go out and commit an armed robbery. But that’s a far cry from agreeing to go out and commit a murder or personally committing a murder. And so the idea that these men have been sentenced to die in prison now feels really unfair, I think, to a lot of people,” DeJuneas said.
A group called We Are Joint Venture has been pushing for more action for people convicted under the theory. The organization posted a video of support last month from former New England Patriots safety Devin McCourty, who had been an outspoken supporter of Allen’s commutation in 2022.
McCourty said that “having to deal with not just your actions, but also being responsible for the actions of other people … makes no sense.”
“Trying to tackle so many different things. Life without the possibility of parole, joint venture felony. All these different things. Man, continue to do the work you’re doing. … I’m down with the movement,” the retired football player said.
Koonce, whose sentence was commuted more than two years ago, has stayed in touch with Foley, who represented him before the Parole Board and Governor’s Council. The pair teamed up last April to give a talk to around 150 people serving life sentences at MCI-Norfolk, Foley said.
“And there was great feedback from that,” Foley said of the two-hour presentation on commutations and clemency eligibility.
Foley said he has noticed an uptick in interest among potential petitioners, including “quite a buzz” around commutations.
“I can tell you this. I get calls and letters at least once or twice a month from different people that are incarcerated, asking different questions about the guidelines and different things about commutation and about representation as well,” the Quincy attorney said.
This year, the Parole Board had taken 83 clemency-related votes as of September, according to data provided to the News Service. The panel recorded 24 clemency votes in 2023, a year in which it pressed pause for months while Healey developed her new clemency guidelines.
Clemency bids are scrutinized first by an initial review, called Phase 1, in which board members decide whether to advance it to a hearing. If they move it forward, the so-called Phase 2 includes the full hearing.
While the board heard six cases in 2021, it weighed 23 clemency petitions in 2022. The board held hearings on nine clemency cases in 2023, and in 2024 has heard 11 cases as of last month, a spokesperson told the News Service.
“I think that Gov. Healey has recommended more pardons than any governor in modern history, and she is absolutely to be commended for that,” said Dolan, who beat Councilor Marilyn Petitto Devaney in the Democratic primary. “And I trust and hope that that will continue.”