Alaska governor grants clemency to 5 people in exercise of little-used executive power

In a rare exercise of a little-used executive power, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has granted clemency to five people convicted of long-ago drug- and alcohol-related crimes.

In a written statement the day before Thanksgiving, Dunleavy said that he had pardoned William V. May for a 1999 charge of driving while intoxicated; Richard A. Vicknair for a 1970 drug sale charge; Daniel J. Smith for a 2010 drug misconduct charge; Daniel W. Woods for a 2002 charge related to people under 21 in alcohol licensed premises; and Kit A. Stavrum for a 1982 drug sale charge.

The pardons, his office said, are the first of Dunleavy’s governorship. Former Gov. Bill Walker pardoned one person during his term.

In the statement, Dunleavy said clemency “is a tool that recognizes when people have paid their debt to society, have taken responsibility and rebuilt their lives. These five individuals, through their actions, have warranted a second chance that clemency can provide and it’s inspiring to acknowledge their efforts.”

Dunleavy did not elaborate about why he chose to pardon these five people among many who have applied for clemency during his tenure as governor. The Alaska Department of Law signed off on the pardons, finding they “would not benefit a personal or financial interest” of the governor in all five cases. Dunleavy’s office declined an interview request and would not answer questions about how the people pardoned were selected, instead referring questions to the written statement.

A Daily News public records request for clemency applications and data on how many people have applied hadn’t yet been fulfilled as of Thursday.

Public records show a person with the same name and birthdate as Vicknair appears to now be a pastor in Washington. A person with the same name as Kit Stavrum is listed as an officer of a Republican county organization in Oregon. Attempts to contact the clemency recipients by phone and email were unsuccessful.

In Alaska, people with convictions can apply through a process that involves a review by the Alaska Board of Parole and the Executive Clemency Advisory Committee, which has three members appointed by the governor. The governor has the final say on pardon decisions.

The current members of the Executive Clemency Advisory Committee are listed as Ralph Samuels, a former Republican lawmaker; Lonzo Henderson, the former head of the parole board; and Carol Fraser, a hotel management executive. Henderson’s term is listed as having expired in March 2024, and Foster’s in March 2023. The governor’s office did not respond to questions about the current status of the board and whether Henderson and Foster were reappointed.

Alaska’s early governors used their clemency powers freely, with Gov. Bill Egan alone issuing 99 pardons. Subsequent governors such as Wally Hickel and Tony Knowles extended only a handful of clemency offers during their terms.

But in 2005, Gov. Frank Murkowski, with little consultation and just before he left office, pardoned the executives of a construction company convicted of negligent homicide after the avalanche death of a construction worker in Cordova. Public outrage followed. In 2007, the Alaska Legislature passed sweeping changes to the clemency system, including more involvement by the Alaska Board of Parole and victims’ rights advocates. It wasn’t the only controversial pardon Murkowski made on his way out of office: He also pardoned the son of a state employee the governor himself had appointed, for a misdemeanor theft charge. In 2010, the man, Ryan Sargento, shot and killed a rival drug dealer and was later convicted of murder.

The next two governors, Sarah Palin and Sean Parnell, pardoned no one. Between at least 2007 and 2017, applications for pardons never even reached the governor’s office, a report by the state ombudsman found. They stopped at the parole board, which had ceased forwarding them on for consideration. The ombudsman found that no process had ever been set up to comply with the 2007 changes to the law. Gov. Bill Walker’s administration worked to restore the clemency procedure in 2018. In an interview, Walker said he chose to pardon one person in 2018 — a man from Nome who’d been convicted of a felony theft while he was in high school, making him a felon and restricting his ability to own firearms. The man wanted to teach his kids to hunt for subsistence, Walker said.

“I thought ‘Well, this is the one,’” he said.

Many of the applicants, he said, were people “sort of bumping up in their employment but couldn’t go higher because of their record,” he said.

Walker made the pardon without a news release or announcement, he said.

“It’s a process that’s constitutionally mandated. I started it up again and I’m glad to see Gov. Dunleavy continuing the work,” he said.

Since 2018, the governor has received 317 clemency applications, the Department of Corrections said. Of those, 206 applications have been denied.

Right now, 105 applications are pending with the governor’s office, the department said.

Alaska’s clemency process is still broken, said Nick Feronti, an attorney with the Northern Justice Project who has researched clemency applications. As of February 2022, the state said the governor had denied 203 clemency applications, according to data Feronti gathered. At the time, 66 cases were pending a decision from the governor.

Feronti said he found an extensive and complicated process that was being used, but with an exceedingly low rate of success by applicants.

Clemency is a “woefully underused power of the governor,” Feronti said. “If there is a way to get people out and be productive again, we should all want to do that.”

Correction: After the original version of this story was published, the Daily News learned that former Gov. Bill Walker pardoned one person during his term. Walker’s pardon had not previously been public. This story has been updated to include information about his clemency decision.