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DOJ chief: 'No one prompted' Duterte to pardon Pemberton
By NICOLE-ANNE C. LAGRIMAS,GMA NewsPresident Rodrigo Duterte's decision to grant absolute pardon to convicted US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton was unprompted and "solely his own," Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said.
"From where I was sitting this afternoon at the presidential residence, I saw that the president's decision to grant pardon to Pemberton was solely his own. No one prompted it," Guevarra said in a message to reporters late Monday night.
Public prosecutors were preparing to contest a court order for Pemberton's early release from prison when Duterte granted the pardon
, completely extinguishing his criminal liability for killing transgender woman Jennifer Laude in 2014."The president simply felt that it was not Pemberton’s fault that there was no way of recording his behavior in a military detention center all alone by himself. So since there were no reports of misbehavior, the presumption of good conduct was on his side," Guevarra said.
Before the pardon came, the Olongapo court that ordered Pemberton's release had ordered the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) to recompute the time the US Marine had served amid debates on whether he was entitled to good conduct time allowances (GCTA).
GCTAs are granted to prisoners who follow prison rules and regulations. In Pemberton's case, the judge ruled that he had accumulated enough GCTAs on top of his actual time served that he was considered to have served one month over his maximum penalty of 10 years.
Protesting the release order, the Laude family said there was no proof of Pemberton's behavior while imprisoned. The American's lawyer countered that the corrections officers who guarded him attested to his good conduct.
But the legal issue of whether Pemberton can benefit from GCTAs has effectively been swept aside by the pardon.
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"The presidential pardon is enough to trigger the issuance of a release order from BuCor," Guevarra said. "Same procedure as for other pardonees."
He said the motion for reconsideration filed by prosecutors in Olongapo has become moot and academic because of the pardon.
Guevarra also said no deportation is necessary because the court will simply lift any hold departure order (HDO) it may have issued against Pemberton. Without an HDO, immigration authorities will let Pemberton leave, he explained.
The DOJ chief earlier said Duterte consulted him before granting the pardon.
"I just told him that pardon is an act of grace and that it is his exclusive prerogative under the Constitution," he said.
Lawyers of the Laude family have slammed the grant of the pardon.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. said the US did not ask for the pardon. Even US Ambassador Sung Kim was surprised, he said. —KG, GMA News