Wilkinson only understood what was happening once officers drove them, still in their pajamas, nearly two hours to the NYPD’s Seventh Precinct, where they overheard one officer tell another they were with the hate crimes unit. There, Wilkinson was for the first time able to get their eyes on an actual search warrant — not because police finally showed them one but because someone they were sharing a cell with who had been arrested as part of the same operation had one in their pocket. Wilkinson was finally released from jail by a judge at 1 a.m.
“They ripped my entire apartment and life apart,” says Wilkinson.
Judicial independence demands the answer to that be “no”. That being said, the governor can issue pardons for crimes prosecuted in state courts.
Some states (not New York) have a system where a commission oversees and issues pardons instead of the governor.