Decide quicker on clemency cases

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After Gov. Quinn took office in 2009, he vowed to eliminate a huge backlog of more than 2,500 clemency cases that had piled up while former Gov. Rod Blagojevich pretty much ignored them.

Quinn deserves credit for taking on this thankless job, but he needs to make more progress than he has so far.

Clemency petitions can be land mines for politicians. Just ask former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who accepted a bipartisan state pardon board’s clemency recommendation for a man who is believed to have murdered four police officers in Washington last year. Huckabee has been widely criticized.

Or ask possible 2012 presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty about his decision as Minnesota governor to pardon a man whose record had been clean for some 15 years only to see the man accused recently of raping his daughter.

You can bet Pawlenty will hear plenty about that if he runs for president.

A politician can even be criticized, as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was, for rejecting all clemency requests.

So, as we say, these cases can be land mines. And it explains why governors in many states are appearing somewhat Blago-esque in the studied way they are ignoring the whole issue.

But that doesn’t mean the Illinois cases aren’t critically important to those who file them.

Many people guilty of long-past transgressions pin their hopes on clemency to improve their chances of getting a job. We’re not talking about serious criminals looking for a get-out-of-prison-free card. Some of those transgressions, for example, may have involved college pranks by people who have contributed to society for many years since then.

In other cases, people are hoping to clean up their records so they don’t get deported.

No one deserves a rubber-stamped clemency request. But Quinn recognized the importance of not leaving the petitioners in limbo when he said in April 2009, “Justice delayed is justice denied. My administration is fully committed to erasing the shameful logjam of cases in a methodical matter and with all deliberate speed.”

Last week, Quinn granted 34 clemency petitions and denied 51. In all, he has granted 371 petitions and denied 524. Those totals include 362 pardons; authorizations for eight people who had already received pardons to seek expungement of their convictions, and one commutation. In all Quinn has disposed of 895 cases since taking office.

The problem is so many new petitions have come in — more than 1,200 since Quinn took office — that the backlog has grown even bigger despite Quinn’s actions.

“Something has to be done about this pardon backlog,” said Margaret Love, who was the U.S. pardon attorney from 1990 to 1997 for the Clinton and first Bush administrations and who is familiar with the Illinois situation.

But at this rate, the backlog is hardly going to shrink away any time soon.

As we have written before, a pardon can be a life changer for those who deserve a break. But the cases Quinn dealt with last week date back as far as 2004.

It does no one any good to leave applicants twisting in the wind for years.

Even if the applicants are destined to be turned down, they at least deserve the decency of an answer.

Quinn has shown he understands the importance of getting rid of the clemency backlog.

Now he needs to roll up his sleeves again and do what it takes to finish the job.