Republican Kentucky Gov. grants many pardons and commutations

Perhaps inspired by his party’s leader, as detailed in this local Kentucky story, just “before vacating his office, Gov. Ernie Fletcher pardoned or commuted the sentences of 101 people, including several convicted of murder.”  Here’s more details from the press account:

Among those given relief by the outgoing governor are a man on Death Row, a county judge-executive who hasn’t been convicted of a crime and the son of a state lawmaker. The highest-profile case Fletcher changed was the death sentence of Jeffrey Devan Leonard of Louisville.

Leonard was convicted of stabbing a store clerk in 1983. Fletcher reduced his sentence to life without parole. In his commutation, Fletcher said Leonard was not provided adequate representation by his attorney, Fred Radolovich, who has admitted he didn’t even know Leonard’s name during the trial. “We’re not going to execute somebody who clearly was denied a basic right,” said David Fleenor, the governor’s general counsel. “We’re not saying he’s a good person.”

Fletcher said he spent “hours and hours over the last few days” weighing the merits of the requests of individuals whose cases filled 10 bankers boxes. “None of those decisions that we have to make are easy but I feel like I can lay my head down and say we’ve done our very best to carry out the duties of the governor till our last day,” he said.

In all, he announced 84 pardons and three commutations of prison sentences yesterday. On Sunday, he announced his intention to pardon nine women who sustained years of domestic abuse before killing, or trying to kill, the abusive man in their life.  He also commuted the sentences of five others who committed crimes after enduring domestic abuse.

Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Larson said prosecutors around the state are upset with Fletcher’s actions, which undermine the state’s legal system. “I think it’s a disgrace; It’s shameful,” Larson said.  “Why do you go through the process” of a trial? Larson said he is particularly upset that Fletcher’s legal team did not bother to contact the prosecutors, victims or survivors in many of the cases.

This lengthy companion piece, headlined “Pardons without political pattern: Fletcher issues most in the past 30 years,” suggests that concerns about individualized justice and not other goals drove the decision: “in this case, it’s possible, experts and observers say, that Fletcher’s troubled tenure and practically extinct political future simply allowed him to use one of the governor’s greatest powers to do what he thought was right.”