Felony pardon process up for consideration in state Legislature

Minnesota is the only U.S. state that still requires three top state officials to unanimously sign off on pardons or commutations of past criminal convictions, but state lawmakers are considering a proposal to lower that high bar.

Gov. Tim Walz — who sits on the Board of Pardons along with Attorney General Keith Ellison and Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Skjerven Gildea — is backing the legislation, along with the state Department of Corrections and a variety of advocacy groups.

Under current law, Walz, Ellison and Gildea all need to vote in favor of a pardon for it to be granted. The unanimous vote requirement is unique to Minnesota, as all other states either give the governor sole control over whether a pardon is granted, or require the majority of a board to vote in favor of it. Only in Minnesota can one dissenting vote sink the process.

The current arrangement dashes the hopes of too many deserving people trying to change their lives and re-enter society, say the backers of the House and Senate bills.

"It makes it incredibly hard to receive a pardon, and for people who have turned their lives around and done everything right since a conviction," said Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, lead sponsor in the House.

Walz and Ellison, both Democrats, have at times joined in backing pardons or commutations that Gildea rejected. The chief justice was first appointed to the court by former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican.

Under the new proposal, only two of the three would need to vote in favor of a pardon or commutation for it to be granted, as long as the majority includes the governor.

In recent years the state has recorded a much lower number of pardons compared with many nearby states. But applications are increasing. After processing 57 clemency applications in 2018 (16 of which were granted), it shot up to 185 applications in 2021, 41 of which were granted. The number of applications dropped slightly in 2022 to 169, and 44 were approved.

In comparison, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced in December he has granted 774 pardons since 2019, compared with 128 people granted clemency in Minnesota over the same years.

Walz said Minnesota needs to remove the unanimity requirement to become fairer to applicants who deserve clemency after taking steps to improve themselves. The state issues too few pardons each year, he said.

"This is about redemption," Walz said.

"One of the things maybe Republicans conflate on this is crime and redemption," he continued. "These people are decades past paying for their crime — they're past everything."

The governor said he takes issue with the fact that the unanimous vote gives veto power for a pardon back to the court system after it issued the conviction originally.

The courts "should be part of the process, but I think you get a better representation when the executive (branch) has the ability to issue this clemency to folks," Walz said.

The proposal also attempts to make the application process more accessible. The legislation allocates $986,000 annually to establish a nine-member "clemency review commission" that would take over reviewing Minnesota's growing number of applications. Each Board of Pardons member would appoint three commission members.

The commission would vote on whether to recommend clemency before the Board of Pardons makes a final vote. The goal would be to process more applications each year. The number of applications is expected to continue to increase, and could double to 370 or more next year, according to a DOC fact sheet about the bill.

Republicans have concerns, especially over the proposed removal of the unanimity requirement. Rep. Paul Novotny, R-Elk River, said he doesn't believe there is a problem with the current system.

"It's just another attempt to water down the process that has worked in the past," Novotny said. "I think they're fixing something that's not broken — spending a million dollars on it."

Other Republicans said they support the benefits of a separate commission, but want the unanimous vote rule to stay.

"Pardons are a big deal — these are people that have already had their due process and have been convicted, many of them serious crimes," said Sen. Michael Kreun, R-Blaine.

Kreun said while he is against the proposal as is, he supports adding six paid staff members who would assist the commission and petitioners, and help connect involved victims to services. The measure would also allow victims to provide confidential statements for a pardon hearing if they fear appearing in person.

Gildea declined to comment, with a spokesperson saying that the Supreme Court "does not weigh in on pending legislation." In a statement, Ellison said he has concerns that the commission, as written, would take away the Board of Pardons' role of having direct meetings with those involved the pardon process.

"I support a bill that preserves direct, face-to-face contact between Board of Pardons members and petitioners, victims, and community," Ellison said. "I do not support delegating that function to another body, except in cases where victims, courts, and prosecutors all agree the pardon should issue."

Ellison's spokesperson did not respond to a follow-up inquiry on whether the attorney general supports scrapping the unanimous vote rule.

Motivation for the bill stems from the pardon application and lawsuit by Ethiopian immigrant Amreya Shefa. She killed her husband in 2013 in what she called self-defense after he raped and beat her. She was found guilty of manslaughter, and after her release in 2018, Homeland Security sought to deport her.

Shefa applied for a pardon, which could have stopped her deportation to Ethiopia, where her husband's family had sworn to kill her. Walz and Ellison voted in favor of the pardon, but Gildea dissented. Shefa's deportation case was "administratively closed" and put on hold after Walz requested Immigration and Customs Enforcement do so.

Shefa filed a lawsuit arguing the unanimous vote requirement was unconstitutional. A Ramsey Court judge sided with Shefa, but the Supreme Court overturned the decision.

Andy Crowder, Shefa's former lawyer, said he thinks the bill represents a much-needed change.

"Minnesota is way behind, and it's way behind because you have situations where one individual person can block somebody's pardon, and somebody who's not the governor," Crowder said.

The pardons can be life-changing. One recent success story is Zach Lindstrom, who went from spending nights in a Minneapolis treatment facility for his drug and alcohol use to being elected to the Mounds View City Council last November.

Lindstrom was convicted of a gross misdemeanor for marijuana possession in 2005. He now works as a loan officer for a credit union, and he said the pardon has been an "enormous weight" off his shoulders.

It has also allowed him to go hunting with his kids, because the conviction prohibited him from owning a gun.

Lindstrom said he supports a switch to a majority vote requirement, saying that he thinks board members vote based on, in part, their own personal "lens" and life experience.

"Some of those lenses might not be as forgiving as they ought to be," Lindstrom said.