Thread: Spitzer Grants Pardon To Illegal Alien

Spitzer Grants Pardon To Illegal Alien

ALBANY— Gov. Eliot Spitzer ignored requests for executive clemency from scores of New York residents, some receiving unjust sentences under the Rockefeller Drug laws while others were convicted under extreme mitigating circumstances.

Instead, he granted a full and unconditional pardon to an illegal alien to prevent his deportation.

Spitzer seems to have a thing for illegal aliens, proposing this fall to give them driver’s licenses. One day after a Siena College poll indicated that 70 percent of New Yorkers opposed his license plan and numerous lawsuits were filed to prevent the implementation of such his proposal, Spitzer shelved the plan.


On Friday, Spitzer pardoned Frederick Lake, a native of Jamaica who served a six-year sentence after a 1991 conviction for first-degree robbery. Lake has been living in Brooklyn with his wife and sons since 1997.

Lake, who entered the United States legally in 1987, faces deportation under a federal statute that mandates the removal of a lawful resident alien who has been convicted of an aggravated felony. However, the federal statute explicitly allows a Governor to prevent the deportation by granting the alien a full and unconditional pardon.

“Mr. Lake has fully served the sentence imposed upon him for his robbery conviction,â€

I take issue with the heading "...pardon to illegal alien". The man was here legally when he was convicted. You do realize the man was convicted of a crime he didn't commit, don't you? He deserves to stay because he was here legally, and he had proof of his innocence -something the jury apparently had no problem ignoring. This is part of the reason I told the prosecuting attorney It would be hard for me to convict someone based soley on witness testimony, absent any physical evidence. The chance for mistaken identity is far greater if the witness is white and the accused is black. What we have seen is that whites have a tendency to focus only on the fact the person they saw was black, this means they don't always pay attention to how dark the criminal's complexion was, the hairstyle worn or other things that identify the criminal. We can argue back and forth over the validity of what I've claimed here, but we cannot deny that an innocent man with NO criminal record was found guilty with NO physical evidence to point to his guilt. We should all be more concerned that a person who has proof of his/her innocence can be found guilty anyway.

I agree with the first two lines of what expendable said. This pardon doesn't look to be something we should focus on.