Master of Mayhem Matt Bevin strikes again on pardons. But maybe he got one piece right?
Every time we think we’re done with the Master of Mayhem, former Gov. Matt Bevin, something newer and stranger emerges.
Two days after the new governor was inaugurated, we’re finding out about all the convicted criminals that the old governor pardoned on his last few days in office. Like many of Bevin’s actions over the past four years, these moves are confounding, volatile, manic, irrational — and in part, beneficial.
Some of what he did seems self-serving and questionable, like pardoning a convicted murderer, who’s the brother of one of his donors. Then again, some was very good, like releasing a man serving time for a crime he didn’t commit. Some of it actually points the way for much-needed criminal justice reform in this state, such as pardoning more than 350 prisoners convicted for low-level drug offenses which shows the need for sentencing changes in our penal code.
Pardoning convicted criminals is a perk of the office, one that all governors indulge in; in 2007, Gov. Ernie Fletcher granted more than 100 pardons, maddening numerous prosecutors across the state. His predecessor, Gov. Paul Patton, didn’t grant pardons when he left, but had already pardoned his chief of staff, Skipper Martin for campaign finance violations.
Still, it’s not clear that anyone has used the rule with such infinite variety as Bevin. So far, the Herald-Leader and the Courier-Journal have written at least eight stories on them. The news is still trickling out.
‘SHAME ON HIM’
First there was the pardon of Leif Halvorsen, who was on Death Row for three murders in Lexington. He has dedicated himself to religion and helping others, Bevin said. Former Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Larson was predictably outraged, saying that Bevin “trampled on crime victims, police, prosecutors, jurors, judges and all Kentuckians who believe in the rule of law. Bevin’s pardons & commutations are a final parting insult to our state by this guy. SHAME ON HIM!”
Then there was Patrick Baker. The Courier-Journal noted that he served two years of a 19-year sentence on his conviction for reckless homicide, robbery, impersonating a peace officer and tampering with evidence, along with two other defendants. They are still in prison.
However, they did not have a brother who hosted a fundraiser for Bevin, along with campaign contributions from other family members.
Then there’s the frankly bizarre, such as the conditional pardon of Michael Andrew Hardy, who was convicted of killing 32-year-old Jeremy Pryor while driving drunk in Bowling Green in 2016. The condition was that “he never consume alcohol again and he share his story and the name of Jeremy Pryor in schools, churches and other gatherings no less than six times a year over the next 20 years.”
The prosecutor in the case told reporter Daniel Desrochers he was dumbfounded by the decision.
“It was so poorly written that we’re trying to see if any of it is enforceable,” Cohron said. “There’s a problem when someone doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
On Thursday, Desrochers wrote another story, where he detailed the pardons of a man convicted of beheading a woman and stuffing her body in a barrel.
On the other hand
Still we have to applaud Bevin for reading John Cheves’ story about Brian Keith Damrell, 49, a Madison County man who was sentenced to a 20-year prison term for a drug crime he did not commit.
Thanks to Cheves, we found out that in 2011, prosecutors in Rockcastle County “used two minor drug crimes from Damrell’s past to enhance a first-offense charge of methamphetamine manufacturing to a second-offense charge, despite questionable evidence in the case. He had no previous convictions for making meth, but Kentucky law allows such enhancements.”
That “enhanced” charge classified Damrell as a violent offender although he’d committed no violence. Cheves also found that prosecutors around the state had enhanced or amended drug charges at least 819 times over the past six years.
Changes in drug sentencing— lessening the penalties for minor drugs such as marijuana — are one way Kentucky could relieve its grossly overcrowded prisons, and Bevin took an important step when he commuted the sentences of at least 332 people convicted only of minor drug possession. They had been screened by the Justice Cabinet and deemed the “lowest risk” to public safety.
That news came out on the same day that Gov. Andy Beshear restored voting rights for more than 140,000 non-violent felons, an important step. His father, Steve, signed the same order when he left office in 2015, an act that Bevin reversed his first day in office, even though he represented himself as a criminal justice reform advocate. He said the right should be restored through a constitutional amendment.
Many states have already passed both voting right restoration and systemic criminal justice reform. It’s a subject that both political parties agree must begin, even if they aren’t sure how it will end. There’s a strange kind of symmetry in both Bevin and Beshear moving in the right direction at the end and beginning of their terms.
This story was originally published December 12, 2019 at 3:28 PM.
