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 have sat in limbo, as the state wrestled with establishing a review process.

This followed fallout from pardons by former Gov. Frank Murkowski that turned the normally compassionate act of pardons into a thornier proposition.

Now, Gov. Bill Walker has laid out the review process for applicants he plans to use, which tracks with a 2007 law intended to mitigate what lawmakers then saw as errors committed by Murkowski.

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