In an unusually timed show of executive leniency, Governor Maura Healey is preparing to recommend pardons for seven people on Thursday, her first clemency actions since taking office less than six months ago, according to two people with knowledge of her plans.
Healey’s decision to issue pardons so early in her first term would mark a major break from her immediate predecessors, who often waited until the final year or months of their tenures — if at all — to act on clemency petitions.
The Cambridge Democrat is planning a midday news conference at the State House to detail her recommendations, according to two people familiar with the plans but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss them publicly.
A spokeswoman for Healey declined to comment Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear who Healey was seeking to pardon or for what types of convictions. Any recommendations ultimately have to be approved by the Governor’s Council, which also vets and approves judicial nominations.
Healey, a former civil rights lawyer and two-term attorney general, has signaled she could take a more aggressive approach on clemency than past governors. She said during her campaign last year that she intended to “move to pardon” those convicted of simple marijuana possession, an idea modeled after President Biden’s efforts on the federal level.
Still, Healey has yet to publicly issue her own guidelines for the state’s clemency process, a step that past governors have taken before granting pardons. Currently, any applicants looking for guidance on what factors state officials use in evaluating clemency petitions will find a set of guidelines former governor Charlie Baker issued in 2020.
The Massachusetts Bar Association’s Clemency Task Force sent Healey’s administration its own proposed guidelines in May. Among the changes it urged her to adopt was reshaping the weight she gives to those who accept responsibility for the crime for which they were convicted, arguing it “should not be a factor” if a petitioner has consistently maintained “actual innocence or responsibility for a lesser offense and there is credible information suggesting there may be validity to such a claim.”
The use of executive clemency can be a politically fraught area, particularly in Massachusetts. Governors have for decades typically waited until after they’ve announced they are not seeking reelection to begin issuing recommendations for pardons or commutations, and even then, they’ve often done so gingerly.
That relative cautiousness dates back more than 30 years, fueled by what legal analysts have called the “Willie Horton effect” — the ever-looming shadow created by Horton, a convicted murderer who raped a woman while on a weekend furlough in 1987. Horton was later the subject of a now-infamous political ad, helping sink then-Governor Michael Dukakis’s 1988 presidential bid.
Former governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat, recommended just four for pardons, all in the final weeks of his second term, while Jane Swift, a Republican, issued seven. Republican Mitt Romney boasted of not granting a single one during his only term in office.
Baker, Healey’s immediate predecessor, left office having 15 pardons approved by the Governor’s Council, in addition to three commutations for men serving life sentences for murder — all in his final year. Baker, a Republican, was the first Massachusetts governor in a quarter-century to commute any murderer’s life sentence.
But he also stumbled at times through the clemency process. His recommendation to pardon Gerald Amirault and Cheryl Amirault LeFave — siblings convicted nearly 40 years ago of sexually abusing children at the family-owned Fells Acres Day School — drew swift backlash from those who maintained they or their relatives were victimized.
Weeks later, Baker withdrew his recommendation, citing an apparent lack of support on the Governor’s Council. They were the only pardon petitions that Baker had sought to not be approved by the panel.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him @mattpstout.