In late 2024, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy commuted the sentences of three women convicted for killing abusers. The move came as part of a clemency program he launched last summer, inviting applications from people who fell into specific categories that he felt needed additional review, Bolts reports. All three women—Jackson, Denise Staples, and Myrna Diaz—applied under the same category: They were survivors who were either coerced by or committed a crime against their abuser. Many other women who faced similar circumstances remain imprisoned in New Jersey. Seventy-two percent of first-time offenders imprisoned for a violent crime at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, the state’s women’s prison, were abused by their victim, according to a 2023 report from the New Jersey Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission.
Advocates are cheering Murphy’s decision, but they also say that clemency is just a short-term solution that doesn’t account for glaring gaps in how the state’s criminal legal system treats abuse survivors. The ACLU of New Jersey, along with other advocacy groups, are calling on legislators to create lasting protections that would provide relief to more men and women who have suffered abuse, and drafting a bill that they hope their legislative allies will introduce this session. It would require judges to consider if someone has been abused prior to sentencing and create a process through which survivors who are already incarcerated can petition for a reduced sentence. Their proposal is inspired by legislation in New York and Oklahoma, passed in 2019 and 2024 respectively, that provide similar protections. “Without any legislation, there isn’t an avenue for their lived experiences in court,” Rebecca Uwakwe, director of The Clemency Project, a program that assists prisoners with petitions, at the ACLU of New Jersey, told Bolts. “We really want to ensure that there is a lasting impact and that survivors will have the relief that they need beyond the clemency project.”
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