No pardon for Billy the Kid, says outgoing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Friday shot down Billy the Kid's chances for a pardon. 

In front of a national audience on ABC's "Good Morning America," the Democratic governor, on his last day in office, said that the legendary outlaw would not be posthumously pardoned.

"I have decided not to pardon Billy the Kid because of a lack of conclusiveness, and also the historical ambiguity as to why Governor Wallace reneged on his pardon," Richardson said of the convicted murderer who in 1881 killed two guards as he escaped the gallows, only to be shot and killed that summer by Sheriff Pat Garrett in New Mexico.

"I felt I could not rewrite history," Richardson told the Associated Press after the broadcast about the man sometimes known as William H. Bonney, Henry Antrim or Henry McCarty.

Richardson, a former presidential candidate, launched a website in December asking for the public to chime in regarding a petition that had made its way to his desk. Of the responses, 430 e-mails and letters agreed that the gunslinger should be pardoned, while 379 were against the idea.

-- Tony Pierce

Photo: This undated picture is believed to depict William Bonney, also known as Billy the Kid, in 1880. Credit: Associated Press /Lincoln County Heritage Trust Archive

Comments

[roger stumbo]

its messed up that is how or government is it a range war with big money involved like john chisholm irish english with the murphy dollan gang pushing out other merchants so that is why outlaws like billy the kids words still live on

[rusty1325]

i bet the family of the back shooting coward pat garret is happy.seeing that billy was standing up for friends and what they believed in while the no good coward assassin sat in the dark and shot billy most think in the back for no more reason more than money.so that ignorant wretch out going Governor Richardson can try and get another failed run for the presidency. while billy is sitting in heaven the coward garret and idiot Richardson can rot in hell.

[Moove to Pyongyang]

Governor Judas just came back from Pyongyang where he consulted with his old buddy Kim Jong Il on what he should do with the rest of his life.Hillary
should name the bum ambassador to Pyongyang or to Caracas.What ever
came out of that investigation on the soon to be ex-gov. about fraudulent
campaign funds that Richardson received from the firm handling his state's
bonds ?New Mexico voters like James Carville saw through the duplicity of
this overweight shleper.