It’s that time of year again…Minnesota Pardon Applications are due December 1, 2017, for the spring 2018 hearing. The Minnesota Pardon Board meets twice per year to consider pardon applications. Many people ask whether a criminal sexual conduct conviction can be pardoned. In Minnesota, any offense can be pardoned, however, the Pardon Board has indicated a general hesitancy to pardon certain offenses. This includes criminal sexual conduct offenses. The pardon board is made up of the State Supreme Court Chief Justice, the State Attorney General, and the Governor. All three must unanimously agree before a pardon is granted. In 2008, the Minnesota Pardon Board granted a pardon of a 1994 Felony Third Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct conviction for Jeremy Giefer. He was then alleged to have had sex with a 14 year-old girl when he was 20 years old, otherwise known as a statutory rape case. After the successful pardon, in 2010, he was charged with five counts of Felony First Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct, five counts of Felony Second Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct, and one count of Felony Incest. This was for allegedly molesting a girl from 2003 – 2010, when the girl was age 9 until age 16. Pawlenty later called for a perjury investigation, saying Mr. Giefer had not been honest with the Pardon Board when he sat before the board to ask for the pardon. The result of this debacle was that the Pardon Board unofficially has stopped granting pardons for any sex offenses or convicted sex offenders.
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