For 39 years, a juvenile assault conviction has hung over Terrance Williams. Bypassed for a job in law enforcement, he was then denied a position at a private security company a half-dozen times because his unsealed juvenile record prevented him getting a firearm license. He’s petitioned governors since the 1990s to wipe away the case, he said, each time without success.
That was until Thursday, when he was among seven people Governor Maura Healey recommended for a pardon on a variety of decades-old crimes. It’s the most by a first-year governor in 40 years, and, some hope, the return of a muscular use of executive clemency that Massachusetts hasn’t seen in a generation.
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“Governors shouldn’t wait,” said Williams, 54, a longtime Boston Water and Sewer Commission employee. At 15, he was convicted in juvenile court of assaulting a friend who didn’t even press charges. “We really need to look at people who are out there, just like me, who just made a mistake years ago, who just want that opportunity to come back to society.”
Healey’s recommendations, which she unveiled at a State House news conference, mark a major departure from her predecessors, many of whom waited until the final months or weeks of their tenures to wield executive clemency, if at all.
Those she recommended for pardons include a great-grandfather who was convicted of drug possession in the early 1990s but later joined the Army and now is nearing retirement from the Boston Fire Department.
She is also seeking pardons for a licensed social worker, now living in North Carolina, who was convicted of various crimes in the 1980s while she battled substance use disorder, and a retired nurse now living in Florida, who at 19 was convicted of arson.
None of the seven is incarcerated, and some were sentenced only to probation after their convictions. Any recommendations have to be approved by the Governor’s Council, which also vets and approves judicial nominations.
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Each of the seven, Healey, a Democrat, said, had been recommended for pardons by the Parole Board under her predecessor, Charlie Baker, but he did not act on them. She described her proposals as the beginning of an effort to review petitions more quickly, and to “modernize” clemency guidelines, giving hope to attorneys, lawmakers, and others that clemency — little used over decades — will return as a common tool of criminal justice.
Currently, the state is working under a set of guidelines Baker, a Republican, issued in 2020.
“These men and women have been carrying the burden of their convictions and dealing with consequences far beyond their legal sentences,” Healey said. “They deserve compassion, and pardoning them is the right thing to do.”
Healey aides said she is the first governor since William Weld in 1991 to recommend a pardon in their first elected year. The seven recommendations also represent the most in a governor’s first year since 1983, when Michael Dukakis recommended 49 pardons and four commutations, according to Healey’s office.
Weld’s successor, Paul Cellucci, also issued four pardons and one commutation in his first year, in 1997, but when he was acting governor, according to the governor’s office.
Healey, a former civil rights lawyer and two-term attorney general, signaled early on that 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, though she has yet to take widespread action.
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Asked if there is a political downside to issuing pardons, particularly so early in her tenure, Healey shrugged. “I don’t care, I don’t know. I have a job to do,” she said.
“We have to be honest: In Massachusetts, when it comes to the criminal legal system, we are not as progressive as we are [perceived],” said Senator Elizabeth Miranda, a Roxbury Democrat. “This signal from the governor, to me, is centered on justice.”
Healey’s office said the Parole Board, which vets applicants for pardons and commutations, unanimously recommended clemency for each of the seven she proposed pardons for Thursday.
They include Glendon King, an Army veteran and Boston Fire Department employee, who was 30 when he was convicted of drug possession with intent to distribute in Boston in 1992. A grandfather to 10 and a great-grandfather to one, King plans to retire soon and move to Florida to work part time as a security guard.
He described his conviction as a short-lived turn toward the “wrong way.”
“For a gentleman that has a good head on his shoulders, to be labeled as a convicted felon for years, it’s not a good thing,” King, 62, said as he stood alongside Healey. “I’ve done everything by the book, everything right. I just want to get rid of that label.”
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Others Healey recommended pardons for are: Edem Amet, a real estate investor who was convicted of selling drugs in a school zone in 1995; Xavier Delvalle, an airlines employee now in Texas, convicted of breaking and entering, larceny, and other charges in 2006; John Latter, a retired nurse now living in Florida, who was convicted of arson in 1966; Deborah Pickard, a North Carolina social worker who was convicted of several offenses in the 1980s; and Gerald Waloewandja, now living in Maine, who was 18 when he was convicted of heroin possession with the intent to distribute two decades ago.
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 an infamous political ad, helping sink then-governor Michael Dukakis’s 1988 presidential bid.
Former governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat, recommended just four pardons and one commutation, all in the final weeks of his second term, while Jane Swift, a Republican, issued seven. Republican Mitt Romney boasted of not granting any during his only term in office.
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Baker 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 was the first Massachusetts governor in a quarter-century to commute the life sentence of someone convicted of murderer.
Martin W. Healy, chief legal counsel of the Massachusetts Bar Association, said Healey’s recommendations go even further.
“These groundbreaking pardons by the governor break the mold of previous administrations,” he said.
Correction: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this story misstated the home state of a social worker who Governor Maura Healey is seeking to pardon. The correct state is North Carolina. The Globe regrets the error.
Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mattpstout.