Texas should overhaul its executive clemency process to ensure a fair and equitable justice system, according to a new report by Texas Appleseed and the Texas Innocence Network. The report, “The Quality of Mercy - Safeguarding Justice in Texas Through Clemency Reform,” offers a series of recommendations intended to improve the process, including holding public hearings in clemency cases, establishing standards and objective criteria that can be used to guide clemency decisions, granting members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles greater independence, and eliminating a Board provision that requires trial officials to agree to a grant of clemency.

In commenting about the report, Jared Tyler, Deputy Director of the Texas Innocence Network, noted, “The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles was established by the Texas Constitution, in part, as a bulwark against prosecutorial and judicial injustice. But through its self-adopted regulations and practice, it has almost entirely subordinated itself to the views of prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement, the very entities it is supposed to check. The Board has relinquished responsibility for independently evaluating evidence of innocence, placing an unjustifiable and needless burden on those who have been wrongly convicted.” (Press Release, Texas Appleseed and Texas Innocence Network, February 18, 2005). Read the Full Report (PDF Format). See also, Clemency.

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