[Aaediil]

I am the father in law of the son of the killed ranger. Take a minute and think if this was your father that was killed for doing his job. We all hear about the hard time that this murderer has had, but what about the life that he left for the victims he knew nothing about, namely my son in law, he had no father to grow up with, he had to live a life none of us wants to think about, and now his fathers killer is granted pardon. If this is justice then I need to look further into the precept of being an american. Please those of you that have the power to help us, please help. If this murderer is allowed to walk on this crime, all I can say is that I hope I am the first one to meet him on the street, that way I can inflict the justice that is mandatory in this situation. Thank you for your time

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Would you be so kind as to convey my very best to your son in law. May God Bless him and his family.

[paul51]

I agree with your sentiments and also feel a life sentence would have been appropriate. As a point of information, he has not received a pardon. He was found guilty and has served the sentence he was given and now is to be released.

[PAR35]

First, let me express my sympathy to you and your family for your loss.

Whether or not the reduced sentence was just or unjust (on the surface, it sounds like he got the benefit of a liberal judge who modified the original life sentence), I'll stand by my question as to what is going on here. When someone does the full sentence assessed against them, the cell door would normally be opened. Thus, when I saw that he had served over 30 years on a 30 year sentence, I didn't understand why there would even be a hearing before the release. I still don't. I'm not saying that I think that morally he should be out of prison, it was more of a matter of academic interest to me as to what relevant fact I was missing.

One thought does come to mind. Could you still get a state prosecution against the guy for murder? There is no constitutional problem with double jeopardy in successive state and federal prosecutions, although some states do have statutory provisions against a state prosecution following a federal one based on the same facts (Irrelevant to this case, but as a matter of trivia, Georgia is one such state). In addition, the statute of limitations never runs on murder in most jurisdictions. It might be worth a letter to the DA to see what he or she says. There would be significant issues as to 'speedy trial' where the crime and the criminal has been known to state prosecutors for 3 decades and they have not acted.