New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson announced Friday he will not grant a pardon to infamous Wild West outlaw Billy the Kid. Richardson, who has been mulling the pardon since he first became governor in 2002, made the announcement on ABC's Good Morning America on his last day in office. There are reports that 130 years ago, territorial governor Lew Wallace promised the Kid — whose real name was William Bonney, though he was also known by Henry McCarty and Henry Antrim — a pardon in exchange for testimony about killings he'd witnessed, but that Wallace failed to meet his end of the bargain. The pardon would have covered the the Kid's 1878 murder of Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady. "I have decided not to pardon Billy the Kid because of a lack of conclusiveness, and also the historical ambiguity as to why governor Wallace reneged on his pardon," Richardson announced on ABC television...
more
Looks like a political decision to me. Richardson may run for office again and didn't want to alienate the law enforcement community nor Pat Garret's descendants.
No comments:
Post a Comment