Schedule more clemency board meetings

Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried is asking Gov. Ron DeSantis to convene two more meetings of the state clemency board before the end of the year.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, meetings of the Florida Board of Executive Clemency were held four times a year. But since then, the panel has met less frequently. It last met in March and isn’t set to meet again until Dec. 14.

“There are Florida citizens who have paid their debt to society and waited years for the chance to have their rights restored,” Fried wrote in a letter to DeSantis on Wednesday. “They should not have to wait a single additional day, never mind having to wait until the December 14th scheduled meeting, which also is at risk of being cancelled given your tendency to do so with such state business over the past four years.”

Fried was referring to DeSantis’ canceling of, or refusing to hold, Cabinet meetings since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. After holding 12 Cabinet meetings in 2019, DeSantis held six in 2021 and has held three so far this year.

The last meeting came on Aug. 23, the date of the Primary Election, in which Fried battled with U.S. Rep Charlie Crist for the Democratic nomination to take on DeSantis in the gubernatorial race in the General Election. Fried lost to Crist.

Meetings of the clemency board usually are held quarterly the day after a Cabinet meeting. But meetings in June and August weren’t convened. Fried is asking DeSantis to reschedule those two lost meeting days.

“Those individuals scheduled to be heard at the canceled June meeting — and then subsequently the postponed August meeting — would now be scheduled to be heard at the next Clemency Board meeting,” Fried wrote. “Can you imagine the emotional toll this takes on individuals to have their lives upended and hopes dashed at the whims of a Governor, having to wait again and again for an opportunity that keeps moving further away?”

“Meanwhile, the number of applicants awaiting to be scheduled at a future meeting gets longer and longer as no action is taken to move forward the progress for those pending before them,” she added. “It is the bare minimum of our responsibility as members of the State Board of Executive Clemency to hold regular meetings allowing applicants to be heard as they seek a second chance.”

The clemency board is composed of the Cabinet, which includes Fried, Attorney General Ashley Moody and Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, and DeSantis. It decides requests from ex-felons to have their civil rights restored, a commutation of their sentence or a full pardon.

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