In keeping with his usual tradition of deciding Petitions for Executive Clemency just before a major holiday, Governor Quinn granted 81 pardons on November 21, 2012 and denied 88. According to sources at the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, all of these decisions were for petitions filed between 2005 and 2010, thus further diminishing the backlog of these petitions never addressed by former Governor Blagojevich. I certainly commend the present Governor for reviewing and deciding these important petitions, however, I’m curious to know what else can be done to expedite the process more. I had previously heard that the Governor’s Office was contemplating outsourcing the first review stage of clemency petitions to pro bono attorneys; while this would undoubtedly speed the process along, I would hope that substantive training would be required of all attorneys being used for this first-stage review. To my knowledge this proposal has not been implemented and I am attempting to discover if it has been temporarily or permanently tabled.
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