Some true stories these days would never last three minutes as scripts in a Hollywood producer’s office. The author would be shown the door for fiction that is just too implausible for the audience to handle. Like, say, a U.S. president meeting the Russian foreign minister just as a U.S. ally is trying to get the Kremlin to quit killing his people and occupying a chunk of his nation. “Get out of here, even Oliver Stone couldn’t make that believable.”
A couple of investigative reporters wrote just such a story last night about Kentucky’s former governor, Republican Matt Bevin. Andrew Wolfson and Joe Sonka at The Louisville Courier Journal report that in his last days in office after losing the November election, Bevin pardoned a murderer whose brother, Eric Baker, hosted a July 2018 fundraiser to retire the governor’s campaign debt from 2015. Baker and his wife also contributed $4,000 of their own money to Bevin at that fundraiser.
The brother, Patrick Baker, had been sentenced in 2017 to 19 years for reckless homicide, robbery, impersonating a law enforcement officer, and tampering with evidence. Two men convicted with him are still in prison, even though he’s the one who squeezed the trigger in a home invasion robbery. Commonwealth’s Attorney Jackie Steele, who prosecuted Baker, was outraged about the pardon: "What makes Mr. Baker any different than the other two?" He thinks it’s the Baker family’s money that did the trick.
Bevin said he pardoned Baker because he didn’t think the evidence was convincing. Judge David Williams, a onetime Republican president of the Kentucky Senate, sentenced Baker in 2017. He told the Courier Journal that in his 30 years of practice, he’s “never seen a more compelling or complete case … the evidence was just overwhelming.”
This part of the story would probably get a pass in Hollywood. It is, after all, the kind of corruption we’re all too familiar with. Not just believable, but almost a cliché. Money for a favor.
But that’s not all. Bevin pardoned 428 people between losing his campaign for reelection on Nov. 5 and Dec. 10, when the winner, Democrat Andy Beshear, was sworn in. Those included:
- Micah Schoettle, convicted last year and sentenced to 23 years for raping a 9-year-old child in Kenton County. Bevin’s rationale was that there was no physical evidence. The prosecutor in the case, Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders, told the Courier Journal, “I’ve got news for him: Child molesting rarely happens in front of witnesses or leaves physical evidence. If we didn’t pursue those cases, 99% of child rapists would never be prosecuted.”
- Irvin Edge, convicted of murder and solicitation to murder for hiring a hit man to kill his business partner, and sentenced to life. In 2004, the parole board ordered him to serve out that sentence.
- Michael Hardy, convicted in 2014 for the murder of Jeremy Pryor. Bevin said the pardon depended on Hardy’s not drinking alcohol and on his sharing his story “in schools, churches and other gatherings no less than six times per year for at least the next 20 years.”
Clemency is an important gubernatorial prerogative in 41 states. We’re not talking about exoneration of the innocent or of people convicted because of legal malfeasance, such as withholding or fabricating evidence. Nor is clemency an effective means for dealing with the outrageous mass incarceration that still plagues our nation. These are different matters that need broader resolution, sometimes including prosecution.
Decisions about who should be pardoned are subjective, of course. But every pardon ought to be carefully considered. That’s not what Bevin did. He had just 33 days to review the records and sign 428 pardons when he wasn’t cleaning out his desk or commiserating on the phone with disappointed backers. Note to Hollywood: Give that pitch a chance. Just make sure the script’s governor character is a modern Republican, and your movie will be perfectly plausible.