Clemency Pleas
Following the initial withdrawal of David Norris from the 2011 presidential campaign after it was revealed that Norris had sought clemency for his former partner from a statutory rape conviction, it was subsequently pointed out that Mitchell had also sought clemency for a convict, in his case for Army of God member and double-murderer Paul Jennings Hill, a fact that had been public knowledge for eight years.
On March 22, 2002 Amina Lawal was sentenced her to death by stoning for adultery and for conceiving a child out of wedlock, as chair of the Oireachtas European Affairs Committee, Mr Mitchell met with the Nigerian ambassador to Ireland to protest the sentence at the time.
Another convict Mitchell sought clemency for was Louis Truesdale, who was convicted in 1980 of the rape and murder of 18-year-old Rebecca Ann Eudy. The victim's mother, Evelyn Eudy said that she "was appalled to hear Mr Mitchell was running as a presidential candidate in Ireland". According to newspaper reports when he was questioned about these letters on the 27th August 2011, he "became quite incensed" and revealed that he has written "a number" of clemency pleas.
Read more about this topic: Gay Mitchell
Famous quotes containing the words clemency and/or pleas:
“That clemency which the world cries up for such a mighty virtue proceeds sometimes from ostentation, sometimes from laziness and neglect, very often from fear, almost always from a mixture of all these together.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend becomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)