LOUISVILLE, Ky. — While some of former Governor Matt Bevin's pardons are stirring controversy, others are celebrating their redemptions.
"I thought I was going to pass out, I was like in so much shock and I was so overwhelmed," Amanda Hall with ACLU Kentucky thought she would never see the day she'd be pardoned.
During a WHAS radio talk on criminal justice reform, Hall received a text from a friend in the middle of a commercial break.
"She sent me a screenshot of my pardon and the tears just came," Hall said.
Hall had a drug-trafficking conviction and a complicity conviction. For years, the record impacted her chances of renting and getting a job.
"I really hope that with all the controversy that's going on with some of these pardons that these other stories are told also and that folks continue to have a chance to have pardons," Hall said. "I want them to have that dark cloud gone from over them."
For some families in Kentucky who were on the brink of healing, the dark cloud has returned.
Out of the more than 400 pardons Bevin issued, one of them is a man convicted of raping a 9-year-old in Kenton County.
Cincinnati station WCPO spoke with the mother of the child who did not want to be identified to protect her family.
"It feels like we're going through it all over again," the mother said. "We just got to the point where we felt safe leaving the house and not looking over our shoulders."
The girl who is now in middle school first accused Micah Schoettle in 2016 telling police he had repeatedly sexually assaulted her since she was 9-years-old.
Schoettle was convicted of rape, sodomy, and sexual abuse in 2018. Instead of serving the 23-year sentence the 41-year-old walked free Wednesday after less than 18 months in prison.
"[My daughter] doesn't understand the whole legal process on why somebody that did something like this could be released and not punished at all," the mother said.
Officials said Schoettle will not have to register as a sex offender, and can even apply to have the conviction wiped from his record.
"Shame on [Bevin], shame on him," the mother said. "He has met my daughter, and now he's saying that my daughter is a liar."
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