New York State Governor Executive Clemency Application Status Ledgers

Numerical by application number, corresponding to a chronological arrangement.

Article 18 of the 1777 State Constitution authorized the governor to grnt pardons and reprieves. This power was continued in the constitutions of 1821 and 1846 and expanded to include commutations by Article 5 of the Constitution of 1894.

These volumes were used to track the status of applications to the governor for pardons or commutations of sentence. Volume 1 has pages labeled "Statement showing condition of applications for Executive Clemency" and overlaps in coverage with entries in Volume 2. Volumes 2-5 were originally labeled J, K, L, and M and are apparently the only extant lettered volumes in this now fragmentary series. The volumes generally provide the following information (with some variations in format and inclusiveness) about the status of clemency applications: application number; date(s) of application(s); journal number and page (volumes 2-5 only; no indication of what journals are being cited); name; county; crime; court (volumes 2-5 only); date of sentence (volumes 2-5 only); term; date received at prison; date term expires; prison; disposition (pardon or commutation granted or denied and date); writ to (volume 2-5 only; gives name of person, e.g. prison warden, to whom writ was delivered); and date of actual discharge (volumes 2-5 only)

Series A0629, Executive Clemency and Pardon Application Ledgers and Correspondence, and Series A0597, Executive clemency and pardon case files, contain related Governors' records.

Series A0629, Executive Clemency and Pardon Application Ledgers and Correspondence, includes index volumes providing rough alphabetical name indexes to volumes 2-5 of this series.

Volume list.

Volume 18 of series A0629, Executive Clemency and Pardon Application Ledgers and Correspondence, was previously filed as volume 3 of this series.

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