Bittersweet justice for pardoned abuse victims

Last week we got the news that, on his last day in office, Gov. Fletcher had pardoned nine women who had finally snapped and killed the men who abused them. (One of the women was convicted for killing her child, though her abusive husband later confessed to the murder.)

Too bad they had to wait for justice clear through the Brereton Jones administration and all the way until the last day of Fletcher’s. Jones commuted their sentences, but only in his last days in office, and Fletcher has been saying he’d review their cases since 2005. Curiously, though, it just never seemed to happen.

I have to wonder why he was willing to pardon his political lackeys and declare he was doing the right thing without regard for consequences to his own career, but couldn’t muster that same outraged bravado on behalf of these battered women until the election was over and done with. Color me unimpressed.

And then yesterday we learned that Saudi King Abdullah pardoned a teenage gang-rape victim who had been sentenced to 200 lashes for being out in public with an unrelated man (just before she was kidnapped and assaulted); her sentence had been more than doubled in retaliation after her angry lawyer went to the media about the case.

The pardon was most likely a result of intense international pressure, plus a desire on the king’s part to shunt attention away from a judicial system that’s still broken, even after recent reforms.

Look, I’m glad those women were pardoned. Better late than never, right? But I am so tired of victimized women waiting for justice until politicians have either nothing to lose or everything to lose.