Governor Gavin Newsom today asked the Supreme Court to sign off on two pardons, for Thear Sam and Curtis Reynolds. The court’s consent is constitutionally required because Sam and Reynolds are twice-convicted felons. Newsom asked for the court’s agreement once before today, and the court granted that recommendation request.
As with his first clemency recommendation request, Newsom today gives little public information about Sam’s and Reynolds’s cases, giving the dates, but not the nature, of their prior felony convictions. However, he does disclose that Sam applied for a pardon “to avoid severe collateral consequences of conviction, specifically deportation and permanent family separation.”
Newsom asks that, other than the cover letter appearing on the court’s website, the documents he sent to the court in support of the two pardons be lodged conditionally under seal. His attempt to keep the information from the public eye might ultimately be unsuccessful.