Please consider Kentucky’s GOP Governor Issues Hundreds of Pardons, Many Controversial, Before Leaving Office.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s term came to an end Tuesday, but not before the Republican took one final chance to kick the concept of justice in the shins on the way out the door by issuing a slew of highly controversial pardons. Since his narrow loss to Democrat Andy Beshear just over a month before departing, Bevin issued 428 pardons, a number to violent criminals, including, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports, “one offender convicted of raping a child, another who hired a hit man to kill his business partner and a third who killed his parents.”
Among the Pardoned
- Belvin pardoned Patrick Baker, who served just two years of a 19-year sentence for reckless homicide, impersonating a police officer, and tampering with evidence. Baker was convicted along with two others for a deadly 2014 home invasion where a father was killed in front of his family.
- Bevin pardoned a man who was sentenced last year to 23 years in prison for raping a 9-year-old child.
- Bevin pardoned a woman who was sentenced to life in prison for murder after giving birth in a flea market outhouse in 2003 and discarding the newborn.
- Bevin pardoned a man who had been in jail since 2003 for killing his parents and leaving their bodies in a basement when he was 16 years old.
Regarding Patrick Baker
Baker’s brother and sister-in-law raised $21,500 last year to retire Bevin’s 2015 gubernatorial campaign debt. They also donated $4,000 at the July 2018 fundraiser held at their home. Baker’s two co-defendants did not get pardoned by Bevin and remain in prison. “I’ve never seen a more compelling or complete case,” the sentencing judge said of Baker. “The evidence was just overwhelming.”
Bribery Charges
This is the most galling abuse of gubernatorial pardons in history.
At a minimum, Bevin ought to face bribery charges.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
I’ve seen things in the last 20 years that I would not have believe possible in this country. It really boils down to moral rot. If a meteor struck DC would it be a blessing or a curse?
It is a check against corrupt courts.
On a more serious note: what is the purpose of pardon power at the hands of a governor or president?
Is a vestige from the King’s pardon, mostly, but the idea is this: The courts have a duty to follow the law, even a bad law. A President, or a Governor, in electing to give a pardon, can attempt to “do justice”, which can be very different. For example, if a person got a very long sentence for a very minor crime because a mandatory sentencing law, the courts have no choice but to give the long sentence, but at some point, a Governor could pardon the criminal after some reasonable term.
25k a pop?
Once pardons were priceless.
This is what deflation looks like.
It makes a mockery of law and order.
If he is found to have taken money in exchange for pardons, send the convicts back to jail and lock the governor up for life.
Once pardoned the convicts are free. They did lock up Ray Blanton, but the people he freed stayed free.
‘Frontline’ is examining how Kentucky’s once-healthy pensions became among the worst-funded in America. https://www.pbs.org/video/pension-gamble-vlit6o/
Red or blue, wrong is wrong no matter who does it or where it comes from.
I’ve lost my ability to be shocked by anything in US politics.
It’s like Matt Taibbi says, there are four “food groups” of political journalism: Blue team sucks, red team sucks, isn’t that weird, and isn’t that awful. This is a good story because it works for two of the groups (red team and awful). The other rule of journalism is refusal to cover topics where everyone is at fault, like the Fed or the MIC.
You’d think a system using only these four groups would run out ammo, but no, there’s more than enough to fill a 24 hour news cycle in perpetuity.
This power of governor pardon has outlived its usefulness.
What it was design for and what it’s used for are two different things.
It’s not even comical anymore how once noble government power seem to get used against the public good eventually.
Same for Presidential pardons. Someone should have to second/approve the pardons to make them effective. For the president, it should have to be 60% of the House. For states, 60% of their legislature.
60% would rarely happen.
What is the purpose of presidential and governor pardon?
I think even making it 10% or 25% would solve the problem.
Other politicians having to stamp there name on it would solve the problem.
“This is the most galling abuse of gubernatorial pardons in history.”
This concept of pardons (by whomsover) is a mockery of the justice system. I wonder how there has not been a challenge to have it removed, meaning to say, once the highest court (on appeal) has delivered a verdict who the hell is anybody to pardon a criminal?
Can you imagine the plight of the parents of the 9-year-old child? Would he have pardoned the rapist if the child had raped his daughter?
A justice system that does not deliver justice would result in justice being taken into the one’s hands or police (as in Hyderabad (India) Police recent encounter case of 4 rapists) and people will cheer this on when this kind of retribution is the only way for justice without understanding that it implies rule of the jungle.
In fact I am all for exterminating such vermins after due process of law. Why should tax-payer feed such criminals while in jail? How can laws meant for human beings apply to inhumans? These are something to think about.
A typo in my post above…
“Would he have pardoned the rapist if the child had raped his daughter?” should be read as “Would he have pardoned the rapist if the child had been his daughter?”
As I pointed out above, this is NOT the most galling abuse of governmental pardons. That belongs to Ray Blanton. Once a person is pardoned by a Governor, the pardon is effective and permanent even if it was given for an invalid reason.
This is supposed to be a check on corrupt courts, as is jury nullification is to corrupt law.
Child molesters cannot be rehabilitated. Something is wrong with their brains. Swift execution is the best for all.
I wonder what the payoffs total? Of course this kind of political criminality is routine in Kentucky.
your sentence undoubtedly should have ended with routine
Bribery? That’s unpossible thanks to people who think like you. And wouldn’t that be a government regulation? The ivy league mentally retarded folfs on the Supreme Court who think like you ruled that what you said is unconstitutional. Bribery has been legalized by folks who believe as you do.
We are living in Rome, 450 A.D.
Don’t be surprised by any of this.
It will only get worse.
Hey, they’re on a roll, so lets’ start demanding better bread and circuses.
Who here remembers Ray Blanton?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U79j8Ck7O0
And who says history doesn’t repeat?
In the case of Blanton, a Democrat, the Democratic Tennessee Legislature inauguerated the incoming Republican Governor, Lamar Alexander, two weeks early, the only way to stop Blanton. Note that while Blanton went to jail, the people he pardoned were free – they can’t be un-pardoned.
Let’s hope that history repeats in another way. Let’s hope that the Republicans and Democrats of Kentucky unite to swear in the new Governor elect as soon as tomorrow to put a stop to this, and that, as happened to Blanton, Bevin proceeds directly to jail.
When the president is openly criminal, the swamp creatures get bold.
I prefer the openly criminal to the discreet ones.
Just because you see crimes doesn’t mean you see all the crimes. Crimes are not ok, no matter the political party.
I stubbed the crap out of my toe earlier.
I was like “ Damn you Trump”.
There’s no such thing as crimes when there’s no such thing as punishments.
No one cares what you think
If you think Trump is openly criminal, what do you say about Obama and the Clintons, not to forget others like Schiff and the top brass of the ‘intelligence (!) agencies ‘?
a swamp is still a swamp regardless of its inhabitants
This has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with corruption. Ray Blanton, who did the same thing (only he pardoned even more people) back in the 1970s, in Tennessee, was a Democrat. Bevin is a Republican. In the case of Blanton, Republicans and Democrats united to get Blanton out of office early, preventing him from pardoning still more people. Hopefully Kentucky Republicans and Kentucky democrats can unite to swear in the new Governor immediately to put a stop to this.
That’s a problem with abandoning religion as a guiding principle. If you don’t believe in everlasting punishment you are morally free to do whatever the law allows.
The problem with religion is it gets people to abandon all rationality and just believe… allowing any huckster with a little charm and a bible to use them.
Nobody with any sense believes a sky wizard that loves them will torture them forever if they don’t be good. It’s a ludicrous extension of the Santa Claus myth.
Exactly my point. He doesn’t believe in a sky wizard so he’s free to do whatever unethical shit he is inclined to.
What is Religion? How Do You Define Religion?
Religion is a modern Western concept.
The modern concept of religion, as an abstraction that entails distinct sets of beliefs or doctrines, is a recent invention in the English language. Such usage began with texts from the 17th century…
Religion is a social-cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements.However, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.
Religion: An Inescapable Concept
I believe is inescapable concept, meaning Religion Is Inescapable Concept
It is never Religion vs No religion
It is question of which Religion is going to guide your society.
Is democracy religion?
Of course
Is socialism/fascism/communism religion?
Of course All law, even law as it developed in pagan societies, is based on a belief that some god or god-force is behind it all.
Even atheistic regimes like communism are inherently religious. The State assumes the role of a god once it officially declares there is no god. Ethics and morality are determined by the State.
There is no escape from God even in modern-day secular humanism since this atheistic faith cannot justify ethical norms of any kind. There can be no right or wrong in a chance universe. The secularist must be inconsistent with his core beliefs in order to justify even the concept of meaning, let alone propose a system of ethics. In effect, the secularist must borrow from the Christian worldview for the development of his ethical categories. There is no fixed touchstone proposition in atheism. All is in flux. What is right today could be wrong tomorrow. Without a fixed touchstone, there can be no law…
Theocracy is an inescapable concept. The rejection of one theocratic government leads to the choice of another theocratic government. Even democracy is theocratic. Have you not heard the phrase vox populi, vox dei? “The voice of the people is the voice of god.”
What about US of A religion? “We the people” are god, and constitution its bible.
Bullshit. Morality is pretty simple. Do you want to be raped or mirdered? Neither do I. If we all agree, it’s immoral. No sky wizard needed.
It is never Religion vs No religion
It is question of which Religion is going to guide your society.
Even atheistic regimes like communism are inherently religious. The State assumes the role of a god once it officially declares there is no god. Ethics and morality are determined by the State.
When a society defines a family as a married couple, the following does not happen. When it defines a family as an unmarried mother, children, and a welfare check, this is the result.
Bastard Nation:
There is an international alliance between the bastard children of the welfare state and the self-made bastards who designed the welfare state and then sold it to the voters, beginning in the French Revolution. The alliance rests on a crucial two-part idea: the moral legitimacy and economic efficacy of central economic planning.
It’s hard to limit gullibility and hucksterism to either the religious or the irreligious. Perhaps we can agree that the actions of the governor were not the fruit of earnest soul searching and the desire to heed both the cry for justice from the victims as well as to show mercy to offenders chastened by circumstance or conscience.
Words have meanings. When you make up new meanings, you get gibberish.
Where did you hear that the Kentucky governor had abandoned “religion as a guiding principle”?
Also, Christianity is promoted as forgiving. Only sinners can gain from the idea that sins can be forgiven. Everlasting punishment is not provided for except in rare cases.
Would you say his behavior is typical of a sincerely religious person?
CC, morality has NOTHING to do with religion. Or, maybe you think that the destruction of the World Trade Center was morally right? It was done in the name of religion. Xtians have done some of the singularly most immoral things in the name of their religion, abiding by the laws of their religion that mere human imagination could not have dreamed up such evil. Genocides, the systematic destruction of no less than 10% of everyone ever born simply because they did not want to be fruitful and multiply. Better man should parish than to force ancient and disproved superstitions on those not quite as gullible as you are. Religion is amoral, it claims morality through power and force, but that does not make it so. The popes and religious leaders are no less immoral and power hungry than Caligula and your sentimental and intentionally false portrayal of your views notwithstanding, religion will doom mankind. People have to cooperate or we would not be here. In that cooperation is an innate morality that the religious demand end. You must not tolerate the apostate, the heretic, those with different views, and only barely tolerate people different from you if they accept second class citizenship.
There is a very good reason religion has failed, it is corrosive and only scary hate filled, emotionally damaged or outright gullible people cleave to it. People like Mohamed Atta.
The far right embraces religious fundamentalism for one really good reason; it permits you the freedom to engage in magical thinking and the denial of absolutely anything you wish not to have to get off your dead butt to fix. Race problems? Oh well, the bible says slavery is fine by god. Environment and climate? Shucks, god will fix it when it gets bad enough. Israeli treatment of Palestinians? Says right in the bible that the land was promised to the Jews so must be the will of your god right? Want to go on? Because there is NOTHING at all that you cannot justify with a few grossly and provably misinterpreted words in the bible, as well as entire books left out because they were inconvenient to the rules at the time MEN were determining the content of the bible at the Council of Nicaea.
You can knowingly base your life on a lie, I do not no matter how harsh that life may become, because if you base your life on a lie it has no value, and you are just as likely to be a Nazi as a saint.
Franch revolution WW1, WW2, Stalin, Mao –all this was done in the name of beliefe/faith
Religion start with: I believe
The Lively Experiment: The Shaping of Christianity in America
By Sidney E Mead
“Tower of Babel” story:
According to the dominant story, the American founders achieved religious freedom by undertaking a radical and risky departure from all past political understandings and arrangements. The heroes in this story are bold political visionaries like Jefferson and Madison,
…it was obvious from the start that the United States presented a difficult challenge: pluralism. How can a society be morally integrated if population is splintered into many competing faiths with diverse moral vision, and having a long history of mutual antagonism?
…Why the rise of compulsory free public education? Must it not be said that prominent among the reasons was a desire to make possible and to guarantee the dissemination and inculcation among the embryo citizens of the beliefs essential to the existence and well-being of the democratic society?
And who can deny that these beliefs are religious?
… the public schools in the United States took over one of the basic responsibilities that traditionally was always assumed by an established church. In this sense the public-school system of the United States is its established church.
In this context one can understand why it is that the religion of many Americans is democracy — why their real faith is the “democratic faith” — the religion of the public schools.
And things are better with those with no religion? Please review the bloodbath that was the 20th century. And, by the way, religions don’t start wars. Governments start wars and use religion to rile the rank and file. At least religion puts a stake in the ground regarding moral conduct. Without it morality devolves to anything that government decides is expedient at the moment.
Did you hear me say anything either for or opposed to religions? Read my comments again.