Days after leaving office, the former Kentucky governor Matt Bevin is facing widespread backlash and calls for an investigation following a number of controversial pardons of violent offenders on his way out the door.Pardons are traditional at the end of a governor’s term ‐ and most of the Republican’s more than 400 pardons were for drug offenses. But a number of the pardons were for particularly violent crimes,
- like a woman who gave birth in a flea market porta-potty and dumped her newborn into the toilet’s septic tank;
- a man who hired a hitman to murder his business partner in front of his family;
- a man convicted of beheading a woman and stuffing her body in a 55-gallon drum;
- a man convicted last year of raping a nine-year-old child;
- and a man convicted in a home invasion homicide whose brother hosted a fundraiser for the governor last year.
In that last case, Patrick Baker was pardoned just two years into his 19-year sentence for an incident in which he and several others impersonated law enforcement officers to gain entry to a home before shooting and killing a man inside. Two others imprisoned for the crime were not pardoned, despite prosecutors saying that Baker was the one who pulled the trigger.
In announcing the pardon, Bevin questioned the evidence presented in the case and the jury’s decision to convict Baker.
"The evidence supporting his conviction is sketchy at best," wrote Bevin in the pardon. "I am not convinced that justice has been served on the death of Donald Mills, nor am I convinced that the evidence has proven the involvement of Patrick Baker as murderer."
Bevin’s conclusion is starkly at odds with the judge who sentenced Baker, David Williams, who according to the Louisville Courier-Journal said: "I’ve never seen a more compelling or complete case ... the evidence was just overwhelming."
Baker’s brother Eric hosted Bevin at a fundraiser for the then governor at his home last year, raising $21,500, according to the paper, which has sparked accusations that the pardon was a favor, not the righting of a wrongful conviction.
In a letter to the Republican attorney general-elect, Daniel Cameron, on Friday, the Democratic senate minority leader, Morgan McGarvey, and the state representative Chris Harris asked for a special prosecutor or bipartisan special prosecuting team to investigate Bevin’s pardons, particularly the Baker pardon.
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