Matt Bevin's pardonpalooza--rapist and murders galore

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Ah, the fine American tradition of eleventh hour pardons.

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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

True. In fact both Paul Patton and Ernie Fletcher did commute a death row inmate's sentence during the last weeks of their governorships (disappointingly, Beshear did not follow the suit, although it's worth mentioning Kentucky is under an effective moratorium).

Ryan's commutation, although large in number due to the sheer size of Illinois' death row, was not an unprecedented move, as shown by this list:

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/clemency/list-of-clemencies-since-1976

Frankly, when Jerry Brown was about to leave the office, I hoped for something similar.

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Tom Corbett when he left office in Pennsylvania in 2015, actually did the opposite by signing a number of last minute death warrants. Tom Wolf later issued a moratorium on the death penalty.

https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2015/02/13/pennsylvania-governor-tom-wolf-says-death-penalty-flawed-imposes-moratorium/

Yes, though these executions were unlikely to be carried out even without Wolf's moratorium. I mean, hundreds of death warrants were signed in Pennsylvania since the late 70s, but only three actual executions went forward, when Ridge was Governor. All three waived their appeals in order to get this over with. Being sentenced to death in Pennsylvania is essentially a life sentence, with the exception you are not with the general population.

Speaking of eleventh hour death warrants, Edwin Edwards scheluded an execution the day after Roemer was to succeed him. Talk about being a dick.

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Also, even in states known for their affinity to execute people, like Florida, you can see Governors issuing a flood of death warrants for pure political posturing, even though everybody knew these prisoners would receive an automatic stay with their appeals still pending. Bob Graham and, especially, Bob Martinez, were especially notorious in this regard, even earning some criticism from the "law and order" types, since it was a giant waste of resources. Yes, all the preparation, security, equipment testing done in anticipation of an execution that was not to take place anyway costs a lot.

Lawton Chiles was more cautious when it came to signing death warrants, which iJeb! attempted to use in 1994, but failed epically.


But perhaps the best example of such real life trolling would be Claude R. Kirk, who, along with Reagan running in California the same year, was perhaps the first candidate to make a death penalty a big campaign issue. He even visited the freaking state prison, shook hands with death row residents and promised to sign their warrants. He stated signing the warrants once in office, even though there was a judicial restraining order against executions in the state.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Oh wait, Bevin actually did commute two death sentences.

In his last series of acts before leaving office, outgoing Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin has commuted the sentences of two of the state’s longest serving death-row prisoners to life with the possibility of parole. On Friday, December 6, 2019, Bevin commuted the death sentence of Gregory Wilson, whose trial proceedings had been described as a travesty of justice. Then on Monday, December 9 — the governor’s last day in office — he commuted Leif Halvorsen’s death sentence in response to a remarkable story of redemption.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/before-leaving-office-kentucky-governor-matt-bevin-commutes-the-sentences-of-two-death-row-prisoners