Alaska sets up process for reviewing clemency applications

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Those with criminal records who want leniency or forgiveness for their legal troubles have sent pleas for a fresh start to Alaska's parole board for years, hoping to get the attention of the state's governor.

But for more than a decade and through three Alaska governors, those clemency requests — now numbering 274 — have sat in limbo, as the state wrestled with establishing a review process following fallout from pardons by former Gov. Frank Murkowski that turned the normally compassionate act into a thornier proposition.

Cindy Strout, past president of the Alaska Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said she sometimes gets calls from individuals asking about the clemency process, which she said is not widely used, mostly because it carries political ramifications.

"I basically have told people, I won't say it's a hopeless proposition but whatever next to hopeless is, in terms of getting something like that," she said.

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/crime/article/Alaska-sets-up-process-for-reviewing-clemency-12526247.php