A new round of Bush pardons
Thanks to this post at TalkLeft, I see that President Bush, just in time for holidays, has granted a new set of pardons. Details about the eleven individuals receiving the pardons and their crimes and sentences are available in this press release. Notably, more than half of these pardons are for crimes committed about forty years ago or longer.
Interestingly, three of the five pardons for more recent crimes go to persons convicted and sentences of drug dealing during the 1980s (and the drug being dealt in two of these cases was cocaine, while marijuana was involved in the other case). Along with Jeralyn at TalkLeft, I cannot help but wonder whether some special connections explain why these three particular drug dealers were the beneficiaries of pardons. (It should be recalled, however, as TalkLeft noted here that four of the persons receiving pardons in the last round of pardons were also drug offenders.)
This newspaper article from Colorado provides more details about Wendy St. Charles, who received a pardon from her 1984 conviction “for conspiracy to conduct a narcotics enterprise and distribution of cocaine.” The article details that St. Charles is now a “licensed attorney who works for MDC Holdings, Inc., the largest Denver-based home-building firm” and that “Larry Mizel, chair of the MDC Holdings Inc., and his wife, Carol, are major supporters of the Republican Party and its candidates.”
Related posts discussing previous batches of pardons from President Bush: