Ford, Lombardo’s pardons board records under scrutiny before election

Attorney General Aaron Ford’s votes on the Nevada Board of Pardons Commissioners have been scrutinized by allies of Gov. Joe Lombardo in the lead-up to the Nov. 3 election.

The opponents’ records are more complicated than attack ads would make them seem.

Ford, the Democratic nominee for governor, has voted in favor of granting pardons or commutations to 54 people convicted of murder or manslaughter in the seven years he has sat on the board, which comprises the governor, attorney general and seven Nevada Supreme Court justices.

Lombardo, a Republican, voted in favor of pardons or commutations for 18 people convicted in killings since he joined the board in 2023, halfway through Ford’s tenure.

Ford’s voting record has made him a target of Lombardo’s campaign and its supporters in the final weeks before Election Day, including one ad by the Lombardo-supporting Better Nevada PAC that said “letting one killer go is unacceptable.”

Lombardo himself has criticized Ford’s votes on social media.

“Aaron Ford wants Nevadans to believe he’s tough on crime, but his support for clemency for 30 convicted killers tells a different story — including personally sponsoring Norman Smith, who killed a pregnant woman and her unborn child. Ford calls it ‘mercy’ for killers,” Lombardo said in an Oct. 26 post on X. “He owes their victims’ families an explanation.”

Based on the way the board functions, with nine people voting, retired Justice Michael Cherry said it doesn’t make sense to attack Ford’s record or Lombardo’s and politicize the votes.

“If you go after Ford, you have to go after the people who voted with him if there’s a pardon,” he said. “If you go after Lombardo, you have to go after the people with him if the pardon is granted.”

The pardons board

Central to the controversy is the board’s handling of pardons, which provide official forgiveness and restore civil rights to those previously convicted of a crime, and commutations, which could reduce a prison sentence or length of parole.

Unlike in other states, Nevada’s governor does not hold that power alone. Instead, pardons and commutations are handed out — or denied — at public meetings by members of the Nevada Board of Pardons Commissioners.

The attacks on Ford do not address some mitigating circumstances that led to killers winning a pardon or a sentence reduction from the pardons board. For some, the point of criminal justice is punishment for a crime, but often that’s not the way the pardons board operates.

The nine-person board balances accountability with mercy, rehabilitation and past injustices, according to meeting transcripts analyzed by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It bestows relief to people who often are decades removed from their crimes and may have already been out of prison for years.

More than half of the votes examined by the Review-Journal were unanimous to either support or reject applications.

Neither campaign made the candidates available for comprehensive interviews about their voting records on the board, despite repeated attempts.

Lombardo spoke with reporters in a brief phone call Friday, contrasting his record and Ford’s when voting for clemency for people convicted of murder or manslaughter.

“Mine is under public safety consideration and the rights of victims and their families,” he said.

He declined to answer additional questions.

What the data shows

To conduct its analysis, the Review-Journal examined transcripts from seven years of pardons board meetings and tallied cases in which the board voted on clemency for prison inmates, including people convicted of murder or manslaughter, as well as people convicted in killings who had been released from prison. The vast majority of the inmates were convicted in killings, but some were in prison on charges such as robbery, drug trafficking or habitual criminal designations.

Of the 109 votes examined by the Review-Journal, 64 were unanimous.

All members of the board were not present for each vote. Ford missed 26 of the votes tallied by the Review-Journal over seven years, and Lombardo has missed 13 votes since he joined the board.

Ford, who took office in 2019, voted in favor of granting relief 62 times in the cases analyzed by the Review-Journal, including non-homicide cases. He opposed granting relief 21 times.

Lombardo, who has been present for fewer cases since he joined the board in 2023, has voted to grant clemency 22 times, including for inmates not convicted in a killing. He has voted against relief 25 times.

Ford voted in favor of the applicant 32 times while Lombardo was on the board, the Review-Journal analysis found.

A range of relief requests

Only a small proportion of inmates gets the chance to plead a case to the board. Each inmate who appears before the board must be sponsored by one of the members, according to Chief Justice Douglas Herndon.

The highest form of relief offered by the board is a full pardon for someone’s conviction. Pardons often come with conditions, such as denying someone’s right to bear arms. In some cases, a person was granted a pardon for part of a conviction but was placed on parole for a different charge.

Since Lombardo has joined the board, it has granted pardons to eight people convicted of murder or manslaughter. Ford was absent for one of those votes and approved the pardon in six cases. Lombardo approved a pardon in five of those cases, opposed a pardon in one case and was absent for two votes.

By the time prisoners reach the board, many have worked to rehabilitate themselves through prison programs. Sometimes, their attorneys argue that they were less culpable than others involved in the same crime who served less prison time. In a few extraordinary cases, victims’ relatives express forgiveness.

The Review-Journal’s examination of the record revealed that Ford and Lombardo voted together 12 times to approve a pardon or commutation in murder and manslaughter cases.

Those clemency decisions often do not pardon an offense or commute a sentence to allow a murderer to leave prison immediately but instead allow them to make the case for their release to a parole board.

Sometimes, the pardons board permits inmates to have a chance at parole when they were initially sentenced to life in prison without any hope of release. But the board’s decision does not guarantee parole.

The Review-Journal’s analysis showed that Ford sometimes made comments or expressed empathy for the prisoners. Lombardo ran the meetings beginning in 2023 but was a less active participant in discussions. Supreme Court justices, rather than Ford or Lombardo, almost always made the motions to grant or deny clemency.

During his first years on the board, Lombardo frequently voted with Ford — only voting against the attorney general in an attempt to deny relief in one case, which was a murder.

That has changed as the two politicians have neared the election.

Since December, Lombardo has voted seven times to deny relief in cases where Ford voted in favor of it.

Political ads leave out case details

The Better Nevada PAC ads show darkened images of the desert, a wood-paneled courtroom and casings falling onto the ground. They feature lurid details and the sound of simulated gunshots.

“A teenager shot in the back of the head. Ford voted to reduce his sentence,” the voiceover accuses in one video. “A victim beaten 15 times with a brick. Ford sided with the killer.”

Lombardo was not in office for 18 of the 30 murder or manslaughter pardons board cases highlighted by the Better Nevada PAC in its attacks on Ford.

Nine of them were what the pardons board calls “community cases,” meaning the clemency seekers had already served their prison sentences. Those people often want to modify parole conditions or receive a pardon to regain civil rights.

Lombardo could have participated in 12 of the votes featured in the attacks, but he was absent for six of them. He voted no in the other six.

Records confirm that the men referenced in the ad, Michael Cu and Arlander Givens, received favorable votes from Ford. In Cu’s case, Ford and some Supreme Court justices passed a motion, 6 votes to 3, to make him parole eligible in 2035. Lombardo voted no.

An ad shows a man walking out of prison gates when discussing Givens, who killed his roommate in 1988. But Givens had already been on parole for more than a decade when he appeared before the pardons board in 2025. A motion to terminate his lifetime parole failed, with Ford and three justices voting in favor. Lombardo and four other justices voted no.

Because clemency seekers need a majority of the nine commissioners to approve their requests, Ford’s votes were rarely pivotal.

For 14 of the 30 cases highlighted in the ads, board members voted unanimously to grant relief. Ford’s yes votes would have only switched the outcome twice.

The ads also focused on inmate Tony Amati, who was dubbed the “Thrill Killer” while on the run in connection with three homicides in the late 1990s. Amati was convicted of one killing and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 40 years.

Prosecutors argued that Amati and co-defendants plotted to find victims to shoot and kill, although Amati told the board he did not plan the shooting for which he was convicted. Amati had been incarcerated for 27 years before his case was heard by the pardons board.

Amati asked for an adjusted sentence making him immediately eligible for parole. His attorney argued that Amati was successful in prison rehabilitation programs and mentored other inmates.

Seven board members, including Ford, voted unanimously to grant Amati immediate parole eligibility. Lombardo and Supreme Court Justice Ron Parraguirre were not present for the vote.

Rehabilitation and restoration

In meetings, Ford sometimes explained his votes and spoke directly to clemency seekers.

At a 2022 meeting, he told Michael Wadsworth, who was sentenced to prison for his role in a 2005 fatal shooting outside a store in Reno, that the justice system is good at incapacitating and punishing people, but not at rehabilitation or restoration.

“I’m proud to serve on a board that actually gives real consideration to those last two Rs,” he said.

He added: “Hearing that you had an opportunity to go play football and do some other things at 18, it breaks my heart that you spent 17 years behind bars for making a bad decision.” He cautioned Wadsworth not to make the board “look like fools.”

The board voted to commute Wadsworth’s decades-long sentence to make him immediately parole eligible, with three justices voting no.

Records show that Wadsworth since has been released. Ford’s comments at that meeting have been featured on a Better Nevada PAC website about his record.

Attorneys, inmates’ relatives and victims’ family members often address the board, and Ford was willing to change his mind after hearing more about a case, transcripts show.

Derrick “Steve” Skinner was sentenced to life without parole in 1992 by a Clark County judge for fatally shooting a man whose home he and others were burglarizing. He initially had faced the death penalty for the crime.

By the time of the December 2024 pardons board hearing, Skinner was the last participant still behind bars, with no hope of parole, his attorney Emily Kunz said at the time.

Kunz said prosecutors opposed clemency, but she argued that Skinner had been rehabilitated. Skinner, addressing the board, expressed remorse.

“This was a senseless and selfish act, and it should never have happened,” he said.

He spoke about the mental health classes he took and his work restoring vehicles in his prison job. He said he hoped to repair his relationship with his children and grandchildren.

One of the speakers in favor of a commutation was Sharrod Robinson, Skinner’s cousin and co-defendant. No one spoke in opposition at the meeting, but Kunz said prosecutors opposed clemency.

“I don’t think that that case is a death penalty case in today’s world,” said Herndon, the chief justice. “Not just as we sit here right now, in the last five to 10 years, I think this is probably resolved somewhere with a life with (parole) penalty in a more reasonable way than it was back then.”

Ford said he came to the meeting planning to vote no but changed his mind after listening to witnesses who supported clemency.

“Mr. Skinner, you have a lot to live up to,” Ford said. “And I have three sons of my own, and I could not imagine life without a relationship with them. And so I encourage you to quickly — assuming you make parole, to initiate that conversation and improve on that relationship. It’s life altering.”

Board members, including Lombardo, voted unanimously to commute Skinner’s sentence and give him parole eligibility. Prison records show that he has since been released.

The Review-Journal found that two people who received clemency in the time period analyzed were later charged with felonies. Both were ultimately convicted of gross misdemeanors.

‘I’m obviously hands-free’

Lombardo was less likely than Ford to articulate the reasoning behind his votes, but he also frequently sided with Supreme Court justices in favor of clemency.

The former sheriff is the only non-attorney on the board, and despite his role running the meetings, records indicated that he was comfortable allowing the justices to take the lead in legal discussions.

Nevada law forbids the pardons board from commuting the sentence of anyone sentenced to life without the possibility of parole who was over 18 at the time of the offense and convicted after July 1, 1995. But the board has heard some cases in recent years for inmates who fall into that category and found ways to give them relief narrowly tailored to the law’s requirements.

Last year, the board heard the case of inmate Sally Villaverde, who was convicted of murder and robbery charges in 2004 and sentenced to life without parole for participating in the deadly robbery of a drug dealer in 2002. His attorney argued that Villaverde didn’t know his co-defendants had planned to kill the victim and that Villaverde tried to give the victim CPR after the victim was shot.

In Nevada, a defendant can be convicted of murder for participating in a crime in which a killing happens, even if they weren’t the killer.

Villaverde was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, but his attorney argued that the law did not prevent the board from giving him credit for time served for the murder charge, rather than changing his sentence to life with parole. Instead, board members decided that the law allowed them to grant Villaverde a conditional pardon for the murder.

The results were essentially the same for Villaverde: He would have been placed on parole for the robbery charges regardless. Some board members debated the philosophical difference between pardoning a murder and releasing an inmate without supervision, especially in a case where an inmate’s guilt was not in question.

When the vote was cast, Ford was the only member of the board who voted against granting a conditional pardon, stating that he wanted more information about the underlying facts of the case.

When Lombardo voted to grant Villaverde a pardon, he thanked the Supreme Court justices for interpreting the law.

“I’m obviously hands-free as far as the ability to understand the complexity of it, so — and I think that’s the purpose of the makeup of the board, so we look at it from different angles,” Lombardo said.

Contact Noble Brigham at [email protected]. Contact Katelyn Newberg at [email protected]. Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at [email protected].