The Supreme Court today recommended that Governor Newsom commute Gerald Ellis‘s life without parole sentence. The recommendation, made at Newsom’s request, is a constitutional prerequisite to the clemency, as it is for anyone who has been “twice convicted of a felony.”
According to the Governor’s request, “In 2007, Mr. Ellis was convicted of first degree murder. He was sentenced to a prison term of life without the possibility of parole. In 2003, Mr. Ellis sustained a prior felony conviction for attempted larceny.”
The LWOP commutation won’t lead to Ellis’s release, at least not right away. Rather, in his request, the Governor told the court he “is contemplating a commutation of sentence that would make Mr. Ellis eligible for a parole suitability hearing.” (Related: “Newsom grants clemency, but freedom isn’t certain”.) The court’s recommendation letter today quotes the Governor’s contemplation, suggesting the court might not have gone along with the commutation if it meant Ellis would immediately walk free.
The Governor’s request also reported that the Board of Parole Hearings had previously made “a favorable recommendation [to Newsom] for commutation of [Ellis’s] sentence following an en banc meeting.”
Including today’s ruling, the court has now approved 21 Newsom requests for commutations of LWOP sentences. He has not sought clemency for any death row inmates. (See here.) Notably, two of those 21 requests were approved after the court had denied earlier requests by Governor Jerry Brown for the same people. (See here and here.) A third such request is pending. (See here.)
Overall, Newsom has a nearly perfect clemency record: he withdrew one request before a ruling, but the court — applying a deferential standard (see here and here) — has approved all 106 of his other requests. (Not counting seven requests that are still pending, including three more LWOP commutation requests.) That’s better than former Governor Brown, who had the court without explanation block 10 intended clemency grants. The denial of a request implies that a clemency grant would be an abuse of power.
In August, the court made public a redacted version of Ellis’s clemency file after the San Bernardino District Attorney’s office moved to unseal the file. No part of the file would have been available absent the motion. (See here and here.)
