ALBANY — The state Senate will convene hearings soon to examine Gov. Andrew Cuomo's broadening use of criminal pardons and what majority Republicans say is a trend of violent offenders being released from prison by the state parole board.

The Senate's review comes as Cuomo has recently granted conditional pardons to hundreds of parolees so that they can vote. In some cases, the pardons have been granted to parolees who were scrutinized and determined to be reformed by the governor's office, but then committed crimes that put them back in prison.

One of the cases cited by Senate Republicans involves a 22-year-old Orange County man who received a conditional pardon from Cuomo after being paroled in March 2016 for his conviction for raping a 15-year-old girl. The parolee, Nicholas Pulido, after he had received a pardon, was sent back to prison in June after being convicted of raping a girl under the age of 17.

Senate insiders said they have also found instances in which dozens of sex offenders who underwent reviews by the governor's office were issued conditional pardons. Some of those, they said, were cleared by the governor's office to receive the pardons, but then arrested for new crimes.

The hearings, which have not been scheduled, will be overseen by Sen. Patrick M. Gallivan, R-Elma, who chairs the Senate’s Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee. Gallivan was formerly a member of the state parole board.

Gallivan and Senate Republicans said the hearings will also examine what they characterized as the state parole board’s recent "leniency" for convicted felons who have killed police officers, committed rape, or were incarcerated for other violent crimes.

The cases that have been highlighted by Senate Republicans include Cuomo's decision to grant a conditional pardon to Herman Bell, who was released from prison despite being sentenced to up to life in prison for murdering two police officers in 1971.

Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo, said multiple other states grant voting rights to people on parole. In New York, he noted, the Legislature has declined to deal with the issue or the inequity of New York laws that allow people on probation to vote, but not those on parole.

"This is not a radical proposal, this is just something that the Legislature specifically refused to deal with and we did it using our existing powers," Azzopardi said.

It's unclear whether the Senate's incisive look at the parole system and Cuomo's increasing use of pardons will also examine the governor's decision to keep secret the names of some of those who have received conditional "youth pardons." Cuomo began issuing youth pardons last year as part of a program he created without authorization from the Legislature.

The governor's expanding use of pardons — he issued none during his first few years in office — began to peak in December, when he granted pardons and commutations to 60 people, including 18 immigrants at risk of deportation and two men who had been imprisoned, respectively, for murder and attempted murder.

Initially, the governor's office declined to release the names of all the immigrants who received pardons, but eventually turned them over to the Times Union. Cuomo's aides had privately expressed concern the immigrants who received pardons might be targeted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement if their names were published, although there's no indication that took place.

The number of immigrants who received pardons last year from Cuomo was unprecedented, and came amid tighter federal scrutiny of immigration violations under the administration of President Donald Trump.

The Times Union's ongoing effort to obtain Cuomo's records on his pardons is focused on 39 people who were given conditional pardons for convictions the governor's office described as "misdemeanors and nonviolent crimes (committed) when they were 16 or 17 years old."

The 39 people were prosecuted as adults and had not been granted youthful-offender status, which would have resulted in their criminal records being sealed by a court. The pardons were issued a year after Cuomo had granted similar pardons to 101 adults who had committed crimes as teenagers. Those names also were not released by the administration.

"Proactively releasing their identities defeats the purpose," said Azzopardi, the governor's spokesman.

Cuomo's office, in refusing to release the identities of those pardoned, also has not provided any records documenting the criteria used to issue the pardons. As such, it's unknown, for instance, whether the pardons have been issued to campaign donors or others with personal connections to the administration.

The Times Union is considering filing a court challenge of Cuomo's decision to withhold the records on his youth pardon program.

In 1987, Cuomo's father, then-Gov. Mario Cuomo, denied a similar request by the Prisoners' Rights Project for access to records on the elder Cuomo's granting of pardons and commutations dating back to 1982.

In rejecting the request, Mario Cuomo's administration argued, among other reasons, that the records were confidential; that the release of the information would be an unwarranted invasion of privacy of the applicants; and that the records were compiled for "law enforcement purposes" and therefore exempt from disclosure.

The case was adjudicated in state Supreme Court in Albany, where then-Justice Lawrence E. Kahn -- now a senior U.S. District judge - picked apart the governor's reasons for withholding the information. Kahn noted in an 11-page decision that the governor's office was obligated to keep a register detailing information on each pardon or commutation, including the name of the convicted person, the crimes for which they were convicted, any sentence and the date of commutation or pardon. He ordered the governor to create a register and to release the information.

Kahn added in his decision that the state Constitution and Executive Law similarly require governors to deliver an annual report to the Legislature documenting the details of any pardons or commutations they have granted, including the names of the convicted persons.

"The people of this state thus have a constitutional right to know when a conviction and sentence lawfully imposed within the judicial process is vitiated by executive action," Kahn wrote in the May 1988 decision. "Thus, contrary to respondent's position that the clemency process is nobody's business, the fact is, it is everybody's business."

In a recent response to the Times Union's appeal for access to the pardon records, Cuomo's office said the 1987 case was not on point because it didn't deal with the "youth pardons" that officials said is an element of the governor's "Raise the Age" of criminal responsibility campaign, which took effect last fall and boosted the age of criminal responsibility in New York to 18.

"(T)he records at issue here relate to individuals who have completed sentence, many of which were non-incarcerative, and have been crime-free and living successfully in the community for at least a period of ten years. That distinction is in keeping with the purposes of the youth pardon initiative," Cuomo's office said in denying the Times Union's appeal.

In the 1987 decision — the only case on record challenging a governor's effort to keep pardon and records secret — Kahn ruled the clemency power of a governor is "an extraordinary one" and just as a "trial, conviction and sentence is a matter of public record, so too, the Constitution recognizes that any grant of clemency must be reported and may not be kept secret."

Governors in many states, including New Jersey and California, release the names of people who receive commutations or pardons.

Cuomo's office has said it files the mandated annual reports on pardons and commutations with the Legislature. But citing no specific authority, the office said the "conditional pardons" are not subject to disclosure.