The governor's office continues to argue the extent of the pardoning ability. Fletcher and the attorney general's office are currently in a debate on whether the pardon's extend to other indictments. The practicality of the situation as Cynicus mentioned in a comment to a previous post is if Fletcher wants his pardons to work the way he wants them too, he might as well hand them a certificate to commit crimes at no charge. The Herald-Leader ran a feature by Ryan Alessi discussing the issue.

FRANKFORT - The attorney for the governor's office accused prosecutors of leading a grand jury to continue to indict public officials solely for the purpose of smearing those individuals' names in the jurors' final report.

Sheryl Snyder, who represents Gov. Ernie Fletcher, asked Franklin Circuit Judge William Graham yesterday to instruct the grand jury to stop indicting individuals in connection with the state hiring investigation. He argued that the governor's broad pardons, issued Aug. 29, effectively wipe the legal slate clean for any current or former officials.

[...]

For more than five months, the grand jury has combed through evidence and summoned more than 100 witnesses to investigate allegations that Fletcher's administration ignored merit hiring laws, which require that rank-and-file jobs be filled based on qualifications, not politics.

The grand jury has indicted 13 people. Five men have been charged since Fletcher's Aug. 29 pardons, which also provided "blanket amnesty" for anyone charged for related crimes in the future.

The grand jury can issue a final report when it wraps up its evidence gathering. But, according to Kentucky law, that report cannot accuse individuals of wrongdoing by name unless those people have been indicted.

Snyder accused the prosecutors of "misleading" the jury and encouraging jurors to levy more charges just to make the report more juicy.

"They are indicting people who have been pardoned for the sole purpose of naming them by name in the report," he told Graham. "It's now clear what's going on."

Snyder went even further, telling reporters later that pardons "erase the offenses" for all those pardoned.

"They should not be named in a report, just like a person who wasn't indicted shouldn't be named in a report," he said.

Whites conceded that a report cannot name people in connection with "committing infractions" unless they've been indicted.

posted by Stithmeister @ 8:31 AM
 
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