Though three of Norfolk Four freed, debate still continues

Gov. Tim Kaine eased a disturbing injustice on Thursday when he ordered the release of three sailors in prison for a murder committed by another man a dozen years ago.

Kaine's decision will give full solace to no one. He denied the Norfolk Four their request for an absolute pardon and instead chose a conditional pardon that falls short of erasing their convictions.

For Danial Williams, Joseph Dick and Derek Tice, the governor's action offers freedom from a prison cell, but not from lingering doubts that some or all of them may have been involved in the crime even if they did not take the life of Michelle Moore-Bosko. The limited pardon has no effect on Eric Wilson, who was released in 2005 after serving eight years for rape.

"I think these individuals have demonstrated grave doubts, but I don't think they have conclusively demonstrated their innocence," Kaine said in an unusual press conference Thursday in which he explained his decision.

His announcement comes nearly four years after lawyers requested clemency for the four men, and after gut-wrenching discussions with those involved in the case. Kaine said he considered the opinions of former federal prosecutors and judges, FBI agents, nine attorneys general and 13 jurors - all of whom had pored over confessions and physical evidence from the crime scene and concluded the Norfolk Four were innocent - but it was clear the governor did his own legwork. He spoke for nearly an hour about the intricacies of the case, rarely glancing at his notes.

Kaine, whose term ends in January, knows how politically unpopular even a partial pardon will be. But he's also a lawyer and former professor of legal ethics who couldn't ignore the facts of this case: The apartment where Moore-Bosko was raped, stabbed and strangled contained no physical evidence - blood, semen, hair - that the four men had been there. And each of the confessions the men gave during high-pressure interrogations conflicted with the others and with the crime scene evidence.

Only one man's DNA and fingerprints were found, those of Omar Ballard, who is serving a life sentence for the crimes.

The detective responsible for the statements - obtained after the men were threatened with the death penalty - was reprimanded for eliciting false confessions, but jurors weren't told that.

For nearly a decade, the cases have wound through the courts, convictions affirmed on narrow issues but never after a review of all the evidence. Last year, after the Virginia Supreme Court upheld Tice's convictions, Kaine was the only person left with the power to act based on a panoramic view of the evidence.

These cases, fortunately, are extraordinarily rare. Pardons are, and should be, reserved for cases with new and compelling evidence and for people the courts have wronged.

This is such a case. In 2007, 30 former FBI agents spent months reviewing the confessions, crime scene video and photographs, autopsy reports, DNA profiles and police techniques. Unanimously, they concluded the convictions of the four men, none of whom had a criminal record before this case, were a "tragic mistake." They asked Kaine to step in.

The governor expressed concern over the use of improper lie detector tests to obtain confessions but also acknowledged the difficulty in ignoring convictions imposed after more than a dozen confessions.

A perfect solution may simply be unrealistic following a horrific murder, a mishandled investigation and years of injustice. Kaine has instead offered a practical solution. While some may second-guess his decision, he has ensured that these three men will finally go free.