Kentucky voters will decide Nov. 3 whether to limit governors' power to pardon or commute sentences around election time.
The only constitutional amendment on the ballot would block governors from granting pardons or commutations starting 60 days before a gubernatorial election through inauguration. State Sen. Chris McDaniel, a Ryland Heights Republican, sponsored the legislation after former Gov. Matt Bevin issued 227 pardons, 418 commutations and 16 combined actions in 2019, most during his final weeks in office after losing reelection, LINK nky reported.
One Northern Kentucky case helped spur the proposal: Bevin commuted the death sentence of Gregory Wilson on Dec. 6, 2019, three days before his last day in office. A Kenton County jury had convicted Wilson in 1988 for kidnapping, raping and killing Deborah Pooley of Covington. The commutation changed his punishment from death to life with the possibility of parole.
McDaniel said he first learned about Wilson's case from Joe Heil, who employed Pooley at Barleycorn's sports bar in Newport in the 1980s. Heil texted McDaniel about the commutation and, according to McDaniel, got the push for the amendment started.
"Joe went to the parole hearing and stood there and said he should never walk free again," McDaniel told the NKY Tribune.
The Kentucky Parole Board gave Wilson a "serve out," meaning he will spend the rest of his life in prison, according to Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders. Sanders told LINK nky that a future governor could still pardon Wilson or commute his sentence again.
Sanders said Bevin's pardons also included another Kenton County case. Micah Schoettle was in the second year of a 23-year prison sentence when Bevin pardoned him of rape, sodomy and other sexual crimes. The pardon removed Schoettle from the state's sex offender registry.
McDaniel first filed the bill in 2020 with a 30-day blackout window. He introduced versions in 2021, 2022 and 2024 before Senate Bill 10 passed earlier this year. The window expanded to 60 days after changes to voting laws lengthened the early-voting period, he said.
SB 10 passed the Senate unanimously in January. The House amended and approved it 82-12, and the Senate accepted those changes 36-1. Constitutional amendments require three-fifths support in each chamber but do not need the governor's signature.
Not everyone backs the change. Scottie Ellis, a spokesperson for Gov. Andy Beshear, said in statements reported by the Kentucky Lantern in June that Bevin "abused the pardon authority and let violent criminals out of prison" but that the solution "should not be to limit a governor's pardon powers but to ensure we elect good governors."
Eric King, spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky (ACLU), told the Lantern in June that the group worries the amendment "will erode an important safety valve in an imperfect judicial system." The amendment contains no stated exception for newly discovered evidence of innocence or terminal illness.
Keri, the niece of Pooley who asked that only her first name be used, told LINK nky the commutation hit her family "out of left field."
Bevin said at the time that Wilson was involved in a brutal murder but concluded the quality of his legal defense made the death sentence unjust, according to LINK nky.
The amendment needs a simple majority of votes cast Nov. 3 to become part of the Kentucky Constitution.
