On April 20, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Ivan Teleguz (pic­tured), whom the Commonwealth had sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on April 25. Teleguz will now serve a sen­tence of life with­out parole. It was the first death-penal­ty clemen­cy ever issued by Gov. McAuliffe. The offi­cial state­ment released to the media in con­junc­tion with the com­mu­ta­tion out­lined sev­er­al of the fac­tors that influ­enced the Governor’s deci­sion, includ­ing the pros­e­cu­tion’s use of false evi­dence that taint­ed the jury’s choice to sen­tence Teleguz to death. “[D]uring the tri­al, evi­dence was admit­ted impli­cat­ing Mr. Teleguz in anoth­er mur­der in a small Pennsylvania town,” McAuliffe said. ​“In argu­ing for the death penal­ty, the pros­e­cu­tor made explic­it ref­er­ence to this evi­dence in argu­ing that Mr. Teleguz was so dan­ger­ous that he need­ed to be put to death. We now know that no such mur­der occurred, much less with any involve­ment by Mr. Teleguz. It was false infor­ma­tion, plain and sim­ple, and while I am sure that the evi­dence was admit­ted in a good-faith belief in its truth­ful­ness at the time, we now know that to be incor­rect.” McAuliffe also cit­ed the dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of sen­tenc­ing Teleguz to death when Michael Hetrick, the admit­ted killer, received a sen­tence of life with­out parole in exchange for his tes­ti­mo­ny against Teleguz. ​“To allow a sen­tence to stand based on false infor­ma­tion and spec­u­la­tion is a vio­la­tion of the very prin­ci­ples of jus­tice our sys­tem holds dear,” McAuliffe said. Teleguz — a for­eign nation­al from the Ukraine — main­tains that he is inno­cent of the crime, and his clemen­cy peti­tion received sup­port from numer­ous polit­i­cal, reli­gious, and business leaders.

This is the third death-penal­ty com­mu­ta­tion issued in the U.S. in 2017. On January 17, 2017, President Barack Obama com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of Abelardo Arboleda Ortiz, a fed­er­al death row pris­on­er, and Dwight Loving, a mil­i­tary death row prisoner. 

(R. Weiner and G. Schneider, ​“Virginia gov­er­nor com­mutes sen­tence of death row pris­on­er,” The Washington Post, April 20, 2017; Press Release, ​“Governor McAuliffe Commutes Sentence of Ivan Teleguz to Life Imprisonment,” Office of the Governor, April 20, 2017.) See Clemency.

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