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Activists were joined online by elected officials Wednesday for the launch of the New York State Clemency Initiative.
Freedom Unshackled Coalition's initiative to convince New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to increase granting "racial and gender diverse" clemencies to four times a year began with a letter the group sent to the Democrat May 6th.
Both the Albany County Legislature and the city Common Council have previously made formal declarations asking the governor to grant clemency more frequently.
Roni Minter with Freedom Unshackled says that under Cuomo, clemency has traditionally only been granted once a year, during the holiday season.
"Governor Cuomo actually ran on a platform that he will fix the clemency issues within the Department of Corrections and make it a smoother process. This has been a failed experiment of his. Just a little background: Governor Carey issue 155 computations. Governor Mario Cuomo issued 37 computations, Governor Pataki issued 32, and at the end of 2019, Governor Cuomo had only shortened 11 sentences."