The Massachusetts Governor’s Council, also known as the Executive Council, provides advice and consent to the governor on pardons and commutations as well as gubernatorial appointments such as judges, clerk-magistrates, public administrators, members of the Parole Board, Appellate Tax Board, Industrial Accident Board/Industrial Accident Reviewing Board, notaries, and Justices of the Peace. The Council consists of eight members elected from districts made up of five state senate districts. The Lieutenant Governor chairs meetings and can vote to break ties.

Governor’s Councilors are paid approximately $35,000 a year and meet one day at week.

Judges

The Governor’s Council is best known for its role in approving or rejecting judges nominated by the governor.

The Massachusetts Constitution expressly reserves power to the governor to nominate and appoint all judicial officers, including clerk-magistrates, “by and with the advice and consent” of the Governor’s Council. All judicial officers are lifetime appointments.

Every governor in recent history has appointed a body to assist them in selecting suitable individuals for appointment to the bench. The Judicial Nominating Council (JNC) is a 21-member council is designed to “identify and invite application by persons qualified for judicial office.  The JNC is initially charged with a blind review of an individual’s application and then interviews. A two-thirds vote is required to advance an applicant to the governor for consideration. 

In addition to the JNC, another body– the Joint Bar Committee (JBC) on Judicial Appointments chaired by the Massachusetts and Boston Bar Associations –serves as the final independent check and balance on those individuals selected by the governor for nomination. The JBC votes the candidate as either “well-qualified,” “qualified,” “not qualified” or “insufficient information to evaluate.” 

The Governor’s Council has its own questionnaire that nominees must complete. The Governor’s Council then schedules a hearing for the judicial or clerk magistrate nominee, which is open to the public and is also live streamed on YouTube.

A majority vote of the council is necessary for a nominee to be confirmed. The Lieutenant Governor can break a tie vote. 

The Parole Board

The Governor’s Council provides advice and consent on gubernatorial appointments to the Parole Board. There are seven members of the Parole Board, each of whom serves a five-year term.

The responsibilities of the Board include:

–holding hearings on parole requests,

–making recommendations on pardons and commutations,

–responding to requests to terminate parole,

–providing assistance to victims, and

–providing reentry services to individuals returning to the community.

Hearings for “lifers” are held on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Natick at the Parole Agency headquarters. They are public but there is no live streaming. All other parole hearings, i.e., non-lifers, are held the other days of the week on site at the prisons, by one or two parole board members. These hearings are not public and no counsel is permitted. Decisions are made on the spot. Governor Baker made nine nominations to the Board during his tenure. Three received a unanimous vote: Marianne Galvin and the renominations of Tina Hurley and Tonomey Coleman. The other six hearings featured significant opposition based primarily on what was perceived of as a lack of expertise in mental health and substance abuse or a preponderance of prosecutorial background.

Commutations and Pardons

The power to grant executive clemency for offenses violating state law, including both pardons and commutations, is held in Massachusetts by the governor, with the advice and consent of the Governor’s Council. Clemency is an important component of the criminal legal system because it addresses systemic racism and unjust convictions in the criminal legal system.

Commutation refers to reducing or lessening a sentence or punishment resulting from a criminal conviction. Typically, commutation petitions are filed by people serving 1st degree murder and thus life without parole sentences. A commutation reduces such a sentence to life with the possibility of parole after at least 15 years.

Petitions for commutations are filed with the Advisory Board of Pardons (aka the Parole Board). The Board reviews and decides whether to grant a hearing. After the hearing, the Board votes on whether to recommend that the governor commute the petitioner’s sentence. If the governor grants the commutation request, it is sent to the Governor’s Council to confirm. The Council holds its own public hearing. A majority of votes is needed to ratify the governor’s decision. If confirmed, the petitioner is now eligible for parole and returns to the Parole Board for a hearing. If there is a tie vote, the lieutenant governor casts the deciding vote.

Ramadan Shabazz’s commutation hearing before the Governor’s Council, December 13, 2022

A pardon functions as forgiveness of an offense to “remove the barriers that are sometimes associated with a criminal record, thereby facilitating the reintegration of the petitioner into his or her community.”

Petitions for pardons are similarly heard by the Advisory Board of Pardons (the Parole Board) and then recommended to the Governor. If approved, the Governor’s Council must confirm or reject.

Recent Commutations and Pardons

There have been varying reports over the years regarding the number of commutation or pardon petitions that have been made to the Parole Board.

During Deval Patrick’s eight-year tenure, he approved one commutation (the first in 17 years) and four pardons. This occurred in 2014, his last year in office, and they were confirmed by the Governor’s Council.

During Governor Baker’s eight-year term, he approved three commutations in 2022, again in his last year in office. In these three cases the Council voted unanimously to confirm the Governor’s recommendations.

Governor Baker issued 17 pardons, in the fall of 2022, mostly for decades-old offenses. All were unanimously confirmed by the Governor’s Council except for the two Amirault pardons. Governor Baker withdrew the Amirault pardons when it appeared he did not have the votes on the Council after a tumultuous hearing with strong opposition.

As a counterpoint to the Baker term, Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who came into office the same time as Baker, pardoned 1,906 formerly incarcerated people and commuted 45 life sentences, as of April 2022.