DOVER, Del. (AP) - Delaware's Board of Pardons has rejected a killer's request to commute his life sentence.
The board denied Robert Hassett III's commutation request Thursday based on written submissions and declined to hear oral arguments. Hassett was convicted of stabbing his stepmother to death in 2000.
Also Thursday, the board voted 3-2 to recommend that the governor commute the sentence of 60-year-old Edward L. Thompson.
Thompson was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 1990 for robbery, assault and other crimes stemming from an attack by him and a friend on four young men at a gravel pit near Milford.
Thompson is in poor health and uses a wheelchair. State auditor Tom Wagner, a pardons board member, condemned Thompson's crimes but said he saw no reason to keep him in prison.
