NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee on Friday announced he is pardoning 43 people who have served out their sentences, stressing that his actions are “very different” than President Joe Biden's recent wave of commutations.
Lee's latest clemency moves are nearly double his next highest total for a single year.
But this time around, Lee specifically noted that he chose not to shorten any sentences — known as commutations — in his yearly announcement of clemency actions around Christmas. He aimed to distance his approach from Biden's, saying the people he pardoned in Tennessee have finished their sentences and rejoined their communities, and each had a recommendation from the state Board of Parole. Lee has issued seven commutations since taking office in 2019.
Last week, Biden commuted the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and pardoned 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes, marking the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. Some of the clemency actions drew community backlash. The clemency push followed a broad pardon for the Democrat's son Hunter, who has been convicted of federal felony gun and tax crimes.
“These are very different individuals than many of the individuals whose sentences were commuted in the previous federal clemency grant,” Lee told reporters.
In Tennessee, a pardon serves as a statement of forgiveness to someone who has completed their prison sentence and are no longer incarcerated, while commutation shortens a sentence but lets the conviction stand. Lee has only issued one exoneration while in office, in which the governor declares that the applicant didn’t commit the crime. Other governors are likewise issuing acts of clemency around the holidays.
President-elect Donald Trump, whom Lee supports, has drawn scrutiny for clemency actions as well — helping a slate of well-connected people in his first term, and promising to start his next administration with pardons for people who were arrested for their role in the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The governor's office said none of the people he pardoned Friday have had an active criminal sentence for at least five years, including probation or parole.
“They’ve been out, but they’ve also shown a compelling reason and interest for getting a pardon and have shown exemplary citizenship,” Lee said.
Lee highlighted several cases, including that of Lanesha Faye Brown. Lee said Brown was convicted of attempted second-degree murder in 1998 at 13 years old after she had been bullied at school and, in one circumstance, tried to retaliate with a small knife for an art class project when a bully attacked her. He said she now has been married for 15 years, earned an associate's degree, and has worked at a Nashville hotel. She was once fired because of a background check, but her hotel coworkers and manager rallied to get her rehired, Lee said.
The clemency actions follow an election cycle in which Republicans nationally leaned on tough-on-crime messaging, which has also been a focal point for Tennessee's Legislature in recent years. Lee, meanwhile, was elected governor in 2018 on a message that included criminal justice reform priorities. He has said clemency decisions and criminal justice reform are unrelated.
Last year, Lee approved 22 pardons and commuted one person’s sentence. He issued 13 pardons and three commutations in 2022, and in 2021 he pardoned 13 people, signed off on three commutations and exonerated one person.
Lee's predecessor, former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, granted nine commutations, 35 pardons, and one exoneration over eight years in office.
FILE - Gov. Bill Lee speaks during a news conference at the end of the 2024 legislative session Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
BERLIN (AP) — A car plowed into a busy outdoor Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, leaving at least one person dead and injuring at least 50 others in what authorities suspect was an attack.
The driver of the car was arrested, German news agency dpa reported, citing unidentified government officials in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The suspect was not known to German authorities as an Islamic extremist, dpa reported, citing unidentified security officials. He is believed to be about 50 years old and to have come from Saudi Arabia.
Regional government spokesperson Matthias Schuppe and city spokesperson Michael Reif said they suspected it was a deliberate act.
“The pictures are terrible,” Reif said. “My information is that a car drove into the Christmas market visitors, but I can’t yet say from what direction and how far.”
Magdeburg’s University Hospital said it was taking care of 10 to 20 patients but was preparing for more, dpa reported.
The sounds of sirens from first responders clashed with the market’s holiday decorations, including ornaments, stars and leafy garland festooning the vendors’ booths.
Debris could be seen on the ground in footage of a cordoned-off part of the market.
The car drove into the market at around 7 p.m., when it was busy with holiday shoppers looking forward to the weekend.
“This is a terrible event, particularly now in the days before Christmas," Saxony-Anhalt governor Reiner Haseloff said. Haseloff told dpa that he was on his way to Magdeburg but couldn’t immediately give any information on victims or what was behind the incident.
Chancellor OIaf Scholz posted on X: “My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives. We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg.”
Magdeburg, which is west of Berlin, is the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt and has about 240,000 residents.
The suspected attack came eight years after an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin. On Dec. 19, 2016, an Islamic extremist plowed through a crowded Christmas with a truck, killing 13 people and injuring dozens more. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
Christmas markets are a huge part of German culture as an annual holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages and successfully exported to much of the Western world. In Berlin alone, more than 100 markets opened late last month and brought the smells of mulled wine, roasted almonds and bratwurst to the capital. Other markets abound across the country.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said late last month that there were no concrete indications of a danger to Christmas markets this year, but that it was wise to be vigilant.
Emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP)
In this screen grab image from video, special police forces attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Thomas Schulz/dpa via AP)
A view of the cordoned-off Christmas market after an incident in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP)
Emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP)
In this screen grab image from video, emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Thomas Schulz/dpa via AP)
Emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP)
Emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP)
Emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Heiko Rebsch/dpa via AP)
Emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Dörthe Hein/dpa via AP)
Emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Dörthe Hein/dpa via AP)
Emergency services attend an incident at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (Dörthe Hein/dpa via AP)
