First-term Democrat Tara Jacobs of North Adams represents District 8 on the body tasked with advising Healey on pardons, judicial appointments, and other decisions pertaining to the criminal legal system. While she’s an outspoken supporter of clemency, two of the three men on governor’s newest slate of pardon recommendations come to the Governor’s Council without the support of the Advisory Board of Pardons.
“The way pardons generally work, so, we have our parole board," Jacobs explained. "The parole board wears two hats: They are the parole board, [and] the same exact people also have a secondary function, which is called the Advisory Board of Pardons. And so, in addition to processing parole applicants, they process applications for clemency. So, pardons, commutations. It's unusual- In general, beyond this administration to past administrations, generally speaking, pardons that come through to council are ones that have been recommended by this Advisory Board of Pardons.”
One of the pardons up for consideration without the board’s backing is for a man named Kenny Jean.
“If you watch his hearing, it's clear that he processes in a way that is- I'm not sure exactly what his cognitive development situation is, but it's clear that he is impacted in how he understands what's happening and his participation and his own- His story is one of having been manipulated when he was younger and homeless to be an accessory to a crime, and I don't know that he fully even understood what was happening at that time,” Jacobs told WAMC.
Jean was convicted of armed robbery in 2016 at the age of 18, and was sentenced to 2-3 years in prison.
“We've already granted a pardon for this individual, but we were asked to and did grant what is called a conditional pardon, and the condition was around limiting access to get a license for a firearm ever," said Jacobs. "With a pardon, it's always a balancing act, right? So, compelling need for that person to receive a pardon- Like, it relieves a burden of some kind, be that a burden around housing or a burden around employment, or, in this particular instance, the really compelling driving need was a burden around immigration status. And it was a kind of a complicated story of a child who had emigrated – I think he was like, four, or five, or six – from Haiti, and this particular child, a life of intense trauma, but also cognitive development delays, executive functioning delays. And so he was under the impression that he was a ward of the state of Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, and he was under the impression his immigration was being handled by his caseworker, which was not the case. And so ultimately, after a series of unfortunate events, there was a danger of possible deportation, and he doesn't speak Haitian any longer and all these things- Like, he has no family network there, it would really just be a crisis if he were to be deported. So, we granted his pardon, but now we're hearing back that a conditional pardon doesn't satisfy whatever the immigration department wants to see, and that conditional pardon is creating a further problem.”
The other pardon candidate the Advisory Board of Pardons has chosen not to back is William Veal, who was convicted of Knowingly Receiving Stolen Property in 1981 at age 21, and then was convicted for Assault and Battery in 1983 and Conspiracy to Commit Larceny, Conspiracy, and Larceny in 1991.
“Again, we have the weighing concerns for public safety and community and an individual's pardon request presenting a compelling need," Jacobs continued. "And I think, ultimately, the board didn't see the compelling need, and reading through it, it doesn't really rise to what, generally speaking, the rest of the pardons that we've seen come through in my term have had compelling needs. And here, it's kind of, the two things that are expressed are, I need this because I'd like to be a process server, and I wouldn't pass the CORI check. And then the other thing being, he's a founder of two different charitable organizations, mostly about youth basketball, and he expresses that those two organizations aren't eligible for federal funding because of his being president of those organizations and having that criminal record. So, like I said, I'm still in the process of understanding exactly why the governor is putting this before us when the board didn't see fit to recommend it. But I can kind of understand from the board's perspective why these don't rise to the level of critical need, compelling need.”
The third man, Danis Reyes, was convicted of Distribution of a Class A Controlled Substance and Conspiracy to Violate the Controlled Substances Act in 1995 and comes with the support of the Advisory Board of Pardons.
The council is scheduled to vote on the pardons on June 5th, but Jacobs wants to slow the process down to make sure she’s making the right decision.
“And I may feel differently after I've gotten all the information back that I want," she told WAMC. "These are just three strange cases to me, honestly, because they don't rise- Even the third one where the Advisory Board of Pardons recommended, there's some sections in it where I just, my eyebrow is raised, and I want more information, because generally speaking, we want to see pattern of great citizenship and successfully avoiding being judicially involved for decades, or at least a decade, right, and so on that particular application, the third one that did get the approval, there's a very recent thing that happened that's a little concerning to me. So, I have questions. I want to understand more what exactly- Because sometimes what the record shows and what actually happened, there is a disconnect where it's fully valid to ignore it. But at this moment, I'm not prepared to ignore anything in the application. I just want more information.”
The eight-member Governor’s Council – which currently has an empty seat for the District 2 representative – can approve a pardon with a majority vote. In the event of a tie, Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll would act as the tie breaking vote. If the majority of the council votes against a pardon, the effort fails.
So far, the body has approved all 13 of the pardons put forward by Healey since she took office in 2023. Healey, a former attorney general, has pursued an aggressive clemency program compared with her predecessors in the governor’s office.
