Governor Asa Hutchinson has announced his intentions to grant clemency to former Boone County resident Jason McGehee based upon the Parole Boards recommendation earlier this year. The clemency would commute McGehees sentence from death to life without the possibility of parole.McGehee is one of eight men the state had planned to execute earlier this year. He had been scheduled to be put to death on April 27, but a federal judge put the execution on hold after the state Parole Board recommended that Governor Hutchinson grant him clemency.
Governor Hutchinson says his intent to grant clemency to McGehee is based partly on the recommendation of the Parole Board to commute his sentence from death to life without parole.
The Governor says in making his decision he considered many factors including the entire trial transcript, meetings with members of the victims family and the recommendation of the Parole Board. In addition, the disparity in sentence given to McGehee compared to the sentences of his co-defendants was a factor in his decision.
McGehee, now 41 years old, was convicted in Boone County Circuit Court in 1998 of capital murder in the killing of John Melbourne Jr. and sentenced to death. He has spent the last 19 years on Arkansas’s death row.
Co-defendants said McGehee did most of the beating when the 15-year-old Melbourne was killed in 1996 for telling police who was behind a northern Arkansas theft ring.
Several people had beaten and tortured the teenager at a house in Harrison. Then they bound him and drove him to an abandoned farmhouse outside Omaha. He was later strangled while his hands were tied with an electrical cord.
A press release from the Governor’s Office says it should be noted that the presiding judge has recommended clemency. The Boone County Prosecutor and Sheriff have raised objections.
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