This is an excerpt from WBUR's daily morning newsletter, WBUR Today. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox,: Gov. Maura Healey has recommended more pardons in her first year in office than any Massachusetts governor since Michael Dukakis. And now, she’s rewriting the books on which Bay Staters convicted of a crime should get relief from their sentence.
The first big tenet of Healey’s guidelines addresses “unfairness and systemic bias” in the criminal justice system. For starters, that means considering whether justice was miscarried or if the person got a particularly harsh sentence compared to others convicted of the same crime. But it also means taking into account whether the person is a member of a group that has faced unequal treatment from the justice system.
Another factor Healey will take into account: Age. The guidelines note a person’s “age, maturity and intellectual abilities” at the time of their offense “may be mitigating factors that support granting of clemency” due to research showing that Finally, Healey says what a person does in jail after their conviction should matter. “Our character can be measured by a collection of actions over time, accounting without hesitancy for the worst things we have done but also owning responsibility for what we do next,” the guidelines say. That includes taking accountability and showing remorse. But the guidelines also say Healey won’t ding petitioners who continue to plead innocence.
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