STATES' PARDONS NOW LOOKED AT IN STARKER LIGHT

In Wisconsin, just before he left office to become President Bush's
secretary of health and human services, Gov. Tommy G. Thompson pardoned a
Republican state senator's son who had been convicted of cocaine possession.

In New Jersey before she left to become head of the Environmental
Protection Agency, Gov. Christie Whitman pardoned a woman convicted on
gambling charges whose nephew is a midlevel official of the State Casino
Control Commission.

In California last fall, Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, pardoned a battered
woman who had killed a former boyfriend. The governor's opponents claimed
the move was motivated by his desire to blunt criticism for what they saw
as an inflexible policy of never paroling a killer.

Those decisions are among as many as 2,000 clemency orders issued annually,
not by the president but by governors.

The sweeping power of governors to grant leniency, which has led to
cash-for-clemency scandals in the past, has seldom received the degree of
attention being paid to President Bill Clinton's last-minute pardons. But
with Mr. Clinton still defending his pardon of the fugitive financier Marc
Rich, pardons on the state level are coming under increased scrutiny,
particularly those that involve accusations of favoritism or unvarnished
politics.

"The state legislatures ought to be holding hearings to see whether the
state procedures are subject to the same abuses as those that are perceived
in the federal system," said Ira P. Robbins, a professor of criminal law at
the American University law school in Washington.

The controversy over the Clinton pardons has highlighted a concern that
clemency orders nationally are often based on inconsistent or unfair
policies, said Daniel T. Kobil, an expert on clemency who is a professor at
Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio.

"Across the country, state legislatures should discuss when clemency is
appropriate because the temptation has been to use it arbitrarily,"
Professor Kobil said.

Clemency includes the power to grant pardons and amnesty and to commute
sentences.

Traditionally, pardons have most often been viewed in a favorable light,
Christmas confections that prove there is a safety valve in a legal system
that sometimes makes mistakes. When questions are raised about governors'
pardons, often by news organizations, there is often no suggestion of
corruption. Most of the questions center on whether the beneficiaries of a
governor's decision received special attention.

When he was Texas governor, George W. Bush took the advice of a Republican
state representative, among others, and pardoned a man for a marijuana
offense. Several months later, the man, who was an unpaid police officer,
admitted to stealing cocaine seized in an arrest.

This month, The Newark Star- Ledger reported that the woman convicted on
gambling charges who was pardoned by Governor Whitman last month, Carma
Storcella, was an aunt of the director of the casino commission's division
of licensing, Christopher Storcella. A spokesman for Mr. Storcella told The
Star-Ledger that Mr. Storcella did not know that a pardon was under
consideration and his aunt denied that Mr. Storcella helped in her case.

This week, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Whitman, Pete McDonough, said it was
"ludicrous" to suggest there had been any connection between the official
and the pardon.

Mr. McDonough said that Mrs. Storcella's husband, who had been convicted of
the same crime, was pardoned in 1994 by Mrs. Whitman's predecessor, Jim
Florio, and that Mrs. Whitman saw the pardon application, which had been
unanimously approved by an advisory board, as "a gender equity" issue. It
was one of 12 pardons she issued last month.

In Wisconsin, newspapers reported this month that Mr. Thompson pardoned the
state senator's son even though the state's Pardon Advisory Board voted 3
to 1 against recommending clemency. Aides to the governor responded that
the judge who sentenced the young man wrote favoring the conditional
pardon, which is to come into full effect only if the young man stays out
of trouble for 10 years.

Some experts on state pardons say that even when there is no indication of
wrongdoing, local news accounts raising questions have become routine after
grants of clemency. Those accounts, they say, often leave the public with a
belief that the system is open to special pleading or outright abuse.

The most controversial pardons tend to be the last-minute ones.

In 1986, the departing Democratic governor of New Mexico, Toney Anaya,
enraged critics, including his Republican successor, with a commutation of
the death sentences of all five men on the state's death row. The death
penalty, he said, was "inhumane, immoral and anti-God."

In 1991, the departing Ohio governor, Richard F. Celeste, drew protests
with clemency orders for 67 criminals, including sparing from the death
penalty a man who had raped and killed a 7-year-old girl.

After that, Ohio put in place a series of changes in its system, including
a requirement that the governor obtain a nonbinding recommendation from a
parole board before making a clemency decision.

There have been few accusations of corruption involving governors' pardons
in recent years. But experts on clemency say history shows that the
potential for abuse exists in a process that often takes place out of
public view.

In the 1970's Tennessee was rocked by accusations that aides to the
governor, Ray Blanton, had been selling clemency. Though Mr. Blanton was
never charged, two of his aides were convicted of accepting payments to
free prisoners. The governor, who was eventually convicted of other
charges, was forced to leave office three days early by a Legislature
enraged at the cash-for-clemency claims.

In the 1920's an Oklahoma governor, J. C. Walton, was removed from office
for selling pardons.

In a 1988 report on state clemency, the National Governors' Association
said a study showed most states were not thorough in their investigation of
pardon applications. In only a few states, the report said, did
representatives of the governors even interview people who knew the
prisoner before issuing a pardon.

The report warned that a full investigation of each case "is essential to
prevent public relations problems or political embarrassments." The 1988
report, the association's most recent on the subject, concluded that there
were about 2,000 prison releases annually resulting from executive
clemency. Some experts say the number has likely increased since then. But
the governors' association does not have a current tally and some
governors, like Mr. Bush when he was in Texas, have been reluctant to grant
pardons.

The Associated Press calculated that Mr. Bush set a 50-year low in Texas in
the number of pardons he granted, 19, including six convicts who had proved
they were not guilty.

Last year, Mr. Bush said he was not opposed to issuing pardons. But he told
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram the case of the pardoned police officer who
stole cocaine had slowed his consideration of clemency requests "because it
was a pretty rough story."

In interviews at the time, Governor Bush said he was never influenced by
politics when making clemency decisions. Yesterday, Jim Pitts, the state
representative who had lobbied for the would-be police officer said the
experience had taught him the lesson that "you need to be very careful who
you recommend to pardon."

Far less controversial, in recent years Gov. George E. Pataki of New York
has issued Christmas-season commutations for people convicted under the
Rockefeller-era drug laws, which he has said are too harsh.

Mr. Kobil, the Capital Law School clemency expert, said some states had
tried to assure that governors had information about clemency applicants.
Ohio, for example, now requires an investigation by parole officials in
advance of a governor's decision. Another change proposed by some experts
would require a public notice to give the public time to comment on
proposed pardons.

The 1988 governors' report said that of the 56 states and territories
studied, 36 gave the governor broad authority to make clemency decisions.
In other states, the power was shared by the governor and a clemency board
or exercised by a board whose members are, in most of those states,
appointed by the governor.

Some legal experts argue that state lawmakers should examine governors'
pardon practices not because they use their powers too liberally, but
because they tend to be too worried about the bad publicity that often
comes after clemency orders.

Some of these legal experts suggest that states might use the current focus
on pardons to emphasize that the pardon power is an important tool when the
court system fails, like when innocent people are imprisoned or sentenced
to death.

"Governors are, in the main, chicken," said Margaret Love, the former head
of the pardon office in the Justice Department. "They have been intimidated
by the fear of making a mistake."