Maryland GOP Gov finally commutes notable life sentence (and others) following notably stingy prior Gov
Van Jones received considerable grief when he said earlier this year at CPAC that the "conservative movement ... is now the leader" on criminal justice reform. But this new story out of Maryland, headlined "Maryland Gov. Hogan commutes life sentence of 'model inmate' from Baltimore who's served 47 years in killing," provides another example of a GOP official being more progressive in the criminal justice arena than an official from the other side of the aisle. Here are the details:
Gov. Larry Hogan’s office said Wednesday the governor has commuted the life sentence of Calvin Ash, a 68-year-old Baltimore man who has spent nearly his entire adult life behind bars despite multiple recommendations from the parole commission for his release.
A spokesman for Hogan said the governor decided this week to accept an 8-0 vote of the parole commission that Ash be freed after serving 47 years for fatally shooting his wife’s boyfriend in the 1970s, when Ash was 21 years old.
Hogan also commuted sentences this week of two other inmates, but did not release their names....
Hogan’s actions mean the governor has now commuted the sentences of 15 prisoners since he took office in 2015 — including at least five inmates serving life sentences. The previous governor, Democrat Martin O’Malley, released three prisoners through commutation during his eight years in office....
Ash has been imprisoned since he killed the boyfriend of his estranged wife on May 2, 1972. On that day, Ash — who was an employee of Union Memorial Hospital — shot and killed Thomas Robinson, 24, inside a rowhouse in the 1800 block of N. Rosedale St. in West Baltimore. Ash confessed to police during questioning, saying: “We were still seeing one another, but then she got on with someone else.”...
He was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. David Blumberg, chairman of the state’s parole commission, said that for more than a decade, the panel has repeatedly recommended that Ash be freed....
Ash’s case has been in the news for years. In 2004, the Maryland Parole Commission approved his release. But in 2006, O’Malley rejected the recommendation without comment. In 2009, the commission again voted 5-2 to commute Ash’s sentence, but that, too, was rejected....
Maryland governors over time have adopted different stances on their power to commute sentences. In the mid-1990s, Democratic Gov. Parris Glendening, issued a so-called “life means life" edict — giving out zero commutations — as he attempted to negotiate an end to the death penalty in the state. Glendening has since disavowed that approach.
Republican Gov. Robert Ehlirch, who served between 2003 and 2007, considered parole on a case-by-case basis. He commuted 18 sentences, including those of five lifers.
O'Malley fought to repeal the death penalty and he commuted the sentences of Maryland’s four remaining death-row inmates to life without parole. But when it came to releasing prisoners sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, he took a hard line. He granted clemency to three in 2012, but approved no non-medical paroles.
Hogan has presided over a decline in Maryland’s prison population. Maryland’s inmate census has fallen below 18,000 for the first time in nearly three decades.... The 2016 Justice Reinvestment Act is often credited for helping to reduce Maryland’s prison population. The landmark legislation sought to divert nonviolent offenders from prison into drug treatment and other programs and included changes to mandatory minimum drug penalties. It went into effect in October 2017.
Comments
Post a Comment