CLEMENCY: Georgia Board Commutes Death Sentence of ​‘Model Prisoner’

On April 20, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles reduced the death sen­tence of Daniel Greene (pic­tured) to life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The Board had stayed Greene’s exe­cu­tion, which was set for April 19, in order to fur­ther con­sid­er his clemen­cy peti­tion. Greene’s peti­tion includ­ed let­ters from sev­er­al mem­bers of the Taylor County com­mu­ni­ty, where the mur­der occurred, urg­ing the Board to spare Greene’s life. Among the let­ters was one from a for­mer cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer, Randy Foster, who called Greene ​“as fine a man as I have ever met in my life,” and said, ​“He is not like any­one else on death row. Daniel Greene is the type of per­son you want for an inmate. He has nev­er giv­en me (or any­one else as far as I know) even the hint of a prob­lem.” In his own let­ter to the Board, Greene apol­o­gized for the pain he caused the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly and said, ​“I was on drugs at the time, but I took the drugs with my hands, and I take the respon­si­bil­i­ty. That choice to do drugs and what I did after were the worst mis­takes of my life. I do not blame the drugs. I blame myself for every­thing.” This was the sec­ond clemen­cy grant­ed nation­al­ly in 2012 and the eighth grant­ed in Georgia since 1976.

(G. Bluestein, ​“Petition out­lines Taylor County killer Daniel Greene’s clemen­cy appeal,” Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, April 18, 2012; G. Bluestein, ​“Pardons board grants clemen­cy to con­demned Ga. man,” Savannah Morning News, April 20, 2012.) See Clemency; lis­ten to DPIC’s Clemency Podcast.