Ah, the fine American tradition of eleventh hour pardons.
Well, sometimes they are FF moves, like when outgoing Illinois governor George Ryan, a Republican, issued exeuctive clemency for everyone on death row:
On January 11, 2003, just two days before leaving office, Ryan commuted (to "life" terms) the sentences of everyone on or waiting to be sent to Illinois' death row—a total of 167 convicts—due to his belief that the death penalty could not be administered fairly. [...]
Wikipedia
Well, that's OK, because he wasn't releasing them from prison unilaterally.
Here are two more from Bevin's final hours:
A man who hired a hitman to kill his business partner
https://www.messenger-inquirer.com/news/local/edge-pardon-shocks-law-enforcers/article_3b7321e8-186e-5e41-b4ef-3eb9b1a42208.html
A man who beheaded a woman he was having an affair with and stuffed her in a barrel
https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article238320918.html
The prosecutor on the case, Tom Handy, said he hasn’t been this angry in a long time. He called the governor’s pardon “mystifying.”
“I think its arrogance of one who has a God-like image of himself,” Handy said of Bevin. “And a lack of concern for anybody else.”
I think this hits the nail on the head. There is a certain confidence one has to have in ones self to run for office, but Bevin has ramped it up to a meglomania where he thinks his judgement is God-like.
Again, in case there is any confusion, Bevin is releasing all these people into society, not removing them from death row.
It was noted in one of the stories that over 300 of the pardons were for drug related offenses and they were probably deserved, but Bevin did not support sentencing reform that is quite common across the country these days. I guess he feels he has the great wisdom to choose who is worthy or not instead of improving the process for getting people out of jail who don't belong there
There's also been a stampede in the last 24 hours in KY to reform the process for pardons, from having a special prosecutor appointed to look into Bevin's pardons to preventing a Gov from making pardons after the election like Bevin did,
This hits the nail on the head. The biggest concern everyone has about Bevins pardons is the apparent complete lack of Rhyme or Reason, or at worst some indication that campaign contributions helped in multiple cases.
This wasn't based on some philosophical belief of judicial reform or counteracting out-of-date Draconian drug laws, or even a handful of selected cases where there is at least some reasonable argument outside his head that Justice wasn't done due to the special facts or circumstances of the case. It's like he went willingly deciding on a purely half-assed and undoubtedly rushed manner who gets the benefit of his being governor. And again, at worst, there are multiple instances that's smell like it was a reward for campaign donors.
His actions have threatened the very legitimate power of the governor to issue pardons, because he basically abused all the Notions and norms for how and when it is supposed to be used. Even is a lame duck he can't help but f*** up completely.
