Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Wednesday said he has the power to pardon Eric DeValkenaere, the first Kansas City police officer ever convicted of killing a Black man, even if DeValkenaere does not apply for clemency.
But, the Republican governor said, his office has had no conversations about pardoning DeValkenaere. Parson said he has not received an application from DeValkenaere and criticized Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker for a letter she wrote last week suggesting that Parson may soon issue a pardon.
“There is nothing in place that we’ve had the conversation about pardoning this guy,” Parson told reporters at an event Wednesday in Kansas City. “So it’s just a lot of propaganda.”
The Republican governor’s comments come after Baker wrote a letter to Parson, urging him not to pardon DeValkenaere.
In the letter, Baker said she learned from multiple reports that Parson was considering pardoning the former Kansas City police detective even as an appeal works through the courts. “This conviction is important to this community and to take it away without your voice being heard, would be a real harm,” Baker said in an interview.
A pardon could provoke an explosive backlash in Kansas City and would be a sweeping assertion of executive power by Parson over the judicial process. DeValkenaere, who is white, was convicted in 2021 of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Cameron Lamb, who is Black, in 2019.
DeValkenaere has been sentenced to six years in prison but has remained free on bond as he appeals the verdict.
“I imagine you might view a pardon as a way to support police,” Baker wrote to Parson June 13. “But I expect this extreme action for the only KCPD officer convicted of fatally shooting a black man will ignite distrust, protests, and public safety concerns for citizens and for police.”
Parson on Wednesday said he has not spoken with Baker, DeValkenaere or his legal team about a potential pardon. He said Baker’s letter was “irresponsible.”
“What is a little disturbing about the whole ordeal is because there just never was no acknowledgment of that,” Parson told reporters. “There was never no conversation from my office about it. And I think for a prosecutor to kind of go out on the forefront there making it sound like we were, one, it was a little irresponsible.”
DeValkenaere’s case
Parson, a former sheriff and longtime supporter of police, indicated that he disagreed with some of the facts associated with the prosecution against DeValkenaere.
During the trial, prosecutors said DeValkenaere and his partner Troy Schwalm did not have authority to be on the property when he fatally shot Lamb. They also maintained that the crime scene was staged and evidence, including a handgun that belonged to Lamb, was planted.
DeValkenaere said that he did not plant evidence and did not encourage any of his fellow officers to do so.
“I’ll be careful what I say here but making the idea for a prosecutor to ever say that there could have been the possibility of a gun that was planted is a terrible decision for a prosecutor to ever make unless you have evidence to support that,” Parson said Wednesday.
Missouri law on pardons
Spencer J. Webster, a Kansas City-based attorney, said in an email to The Star that Missouri law does not require that Parson receive an application in order to grant a pardon.
Webster added that, based on his understanding of the law, DeValkenaere’s appeal does not have to be rejected in order for him to apply for a pardon.
“My hope is that, whether or not the governor was considering a pardon for DeValkenaere, he allows the system to run its course,” he said. “As the sole conviction in a case of this type, where so many have gone unanswered, this conviction is not only a powerful statement but also justice for a community that has been deprived of it for so long.”
Allen Rostron, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said the law guiding pardons is less clear. It would be rare, he said, for a governor to consider pardoning someone who still has an appeal pending and who has not officially applied.
While the law is ambiguous, Rostron said, “the answer seems to be that there must be an application, and that it must be made after exhausting judicial remedies (such as completing the appeal).”
If Parson were to grant a pardon without receiving an application, it would be up to the courts to decide if he violated state law, Rostron said.
“That would be quite rare, and therefore there’s some uncertainty about it,” he said.