And, in the buildup for today, Richardson's last day in office, there was another kind of speculation — would he issue a pardon to the infamous Billy the Kid?
No one knows what the future holds for Richardson. But today, he announced that the immediate future would not include a pardon for the 19th–century outlaw.The whole thing stemmed from a promise that was allegedly made to the Kid but was never kept.
Next July, it will be 130 years since the Kid (aka William Bonney) was killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett. Prior to that, New Mexico's territorial governor reportedly offered him a pardon for killing a law enforcement officer in exchange for his testimony about killings he witnessed.
Richardson agreed that the territorial governor did, indeed, make a deal of some kind with Billy the Kid, but he said he "could not rewrite history." It was unclear, he said, why the territorial governor did not keep his promise, and because of that uncertainty, he could not issue a posthumous pardon.
Randi McGinn, the lawyer who defended the Kid, said the effort would go on and "perhaps a future New Mexico governor will grant justice for the Kid."
But it won't be Richardson, who claims to have read many books and seen many movies dealing with the subject.
The descendant of the territorial governor applauded the decision. Richardson "followed the correct, rational track in forgoing a pardon for a convicted murderer," he said.
And Robert Utley, the author of a book on the Kid, also supported Richardson's decision. "If Billy deserves a pardon," he said, "it will be granted by history, not the governor of New Mexico."
In nearly 130 years, history has not granted such a pardon.
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