In 1988, Roy Bolus, then 18 years old, and five other men drove from Brooklyn to Albany to rob a drug house. One of the other men Bolus was with shot and killed two men in the house, George Mosley and William Patterson. On New Year’s Eve 2018, after serving nearly 30 years of an 80-to-life sentence for felony murder, Bolus learned that Governor Andrew Cuomo had commuted his sentence. On January 28th, Bolus walked out of prison.

This past Wednesday, Bolus joined nearly three dozen people at a rally in front of Cuomo’s Midtown office to demand that he grant clemency to people in the state’s prison system.

“I was asked by those inside, ‘Don’t leave us behind,’” Bolus told the assembled advocates.

Holding signs bearing the names of clemency applicants, as well as people who have died while in New York’s prisons, they chanted, “Hey hey, ho ho, free our people, let them go!”

Clemency can take two forms—a pardon, usually granted after a person has served their prison sentence, which expunges a person’s criminal history, or a commutation, in which a person’s prison sentence is shortened.

In other states, governors have made headlines with mass commutations. In July 2019, California governor Gavin Newsom granted 21 commutations. In Oklahoma, which has the nation’s highest incarceration rate, Governor Kevin Stitt signed 527 commutations in a single day.

Since taking office in 2011, Cuomo has granted just 19 commutations, despite his creation of an Executive Clemency Board in 2015, to help identify people in the state’s prisons eligible for clemency.

Valerie Seeley is another clemency recipient. In December 2016, Cuomo commuted her 19-to-life sentence for the death of her abusive boyfriend; she was released the following month, reuniting with her daughter and grandchildren. Now, she hopes Cuomo will extend his compassion to the women she left behind.

“There’s a whole lot of women who have long bids,” Seely told Gothamist. She recalled 61-year-old Valerie Gaiter, who died in August after serving 40 years of her 50-to-life prison sentence. Gaiter, whom Seeley credits with encouraging her to continue fighting for freedom, had previously been denied clemency by Cuomo’s office. She would not have been eligible to appear before the parole board for another ten years.

Steve Zeidman is the co-director of the Defenders Clinic Second Look Project at CUNY Law School. The clinic assigns students to assist applicants seeking commutation, including Bolus and one of his co-defendants Alphonse Riley-James; both were granted clemency in 2018. The news ignited hope in two of their co-defendants, Richard Chalk and Lance Sessoms. Chalk is currently serving a 50-to-life sentence and will be eligible for parole at age 80. Sessoms, who fatally shot two men during the robbery, is serving 75-to-life and without clemency, will have to wait until age 98 before becoming eligible for parole. The day after the clemencies were announced, family members of both men called the clinic.

“We all stayed inside for more than 30 years,” Bolus told Gothamist. “I’ve seen the tears, the remorse. I hope that they get the relief that they seek also.” Zeidman noted that both Bolus and Riley-James have not only participated in and created programs within the prison, but have also served as mentors to younger men entering the prison system.

“The point of clemency is to force us to deal with the question of, what is appropriate punishment for people who have caused devastation to families?” Zeidman said. “Does that foreclose any possibility of transformation and redemption? If so, then we’re sentencing thousands of people to die in prison. They’re not going to live to be 88 [or] 90.”

Jose Saldana, who spent 38 years in prison and is now director of Release Aging People in Prison, noted that many of the men not only participated in prison programs, but also created rehabilitative programming. Two years ago, he and Bolus were in Greenhaven Correctional Facility co-facilitating programs that they had developed. Today, they are now pushing for the release of the many thousands of men and women still behind bars. “We’re calling on Cuomo to recognize people who have been languishing in prison for decades, to recognize them for who they are today,” Saldana said.

Zeidman said that Governor Cuomo’s reluctance to grant clemency has dashed the hopes of many. “‘False hope is worse than no hope,’ is what I’ve heard from so many people inside,” he said.

The governor’s office has not responded to our questions about his clemency plans for 2019.

Recalling many of the men he met during his 30 years in prison, Bolus said, “Those men are trying to find a way to be better individuals, but you won’t see it unless they’re given an opportunity. I’m grateful to the governor for giving me that opportunity and I hope he extends that opportunity to others.”