August 23, 2023

Today my good friend Kevin Nigel Stanford turns 60 years old in a Kentucky prison.  Kevin has been a prisoner since the age of 17.  He has been incarcerated for more than 42 years and my friend for 29 years. He needs our collective support to finally gain release from prison, so that he may live out his senior years in the community.

I know that Kevin Stanford has earned this opportunity. I am asking for your signature and any other help that you can provide to make this a reality for him.  

Kevin Stanford has a home to go to when released from prison, as well as a job working in the youth ministry, both thanks to the leadership and parishioners at a local Christian church in south-central Kentucky.

My friend Kevin has pen-and-paper petitions passing through religious and civic organizations across the Commonwealth of Kentucky.  This online petition is meant to augment or pump-up those efforts, and to bring a greater show of numbers for all the people out here who support Kevin Stanford's release after 42 years in prison.  

Who I Am to Kevin Stanford

From 1994 until 2003, I served as one of Kevin's attorneys. I am proud to know Kevin and to have seen his humanity, empathy and commitment to repaying his debt to society for a crime committed as a troubled 17 year old teenager.  Kevin and I have remained friends and have kept in touch over the 20 years since I represented him.

I know the traumatic childhood that my friend Kevin endured, the factors that led to his involvement as a teen in a serious crime that ended a young woman's life, the remorse and resulting purpose that he feels so intensely, and the battles that he has faced over two decades of life on death row (1982-2003), and another two decades spent living with a life without parole sentence (2003-present). 

The Backstory - 1981:

In 1981, Kevin was arrested in his hometown of Louisville at age 17, along with two other Black Louisville teenagers, ages 16 and 17.  All three teens were charged with robbery, sexual assault and murder in a case where a young white woman tragically lost her life.  

In October 1982, Kevin was sentenced to the death penalty after a joint trial with one of his two co-defendants. (The other teen testified for the prosecution in exchange for a few months in juvenile detention).  The trial judge ruled prior to trial that Kevin's 16 year old co-defendant would not face the death penalty because of a low IQ, leaving Kevin as the only one who could be sentenced to death.  And he was.  Kevin's co-defendant at trial received a life with possibility of parole sentence.

Kevin Stanford in 1982 went to the death row unit in state prison, and lawyers began appealing his conviction and the constitutionality of his death sentence as a teenager.  Kevin's case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and he lost in a case that affected the entire country.

Developments in the Law Leave Kevin Stanford Behind:

Many major developments in U.S. Supreme court law that have benefitted others, have left Kevin behind due to his unique procedural circumstances and nothing more. 

For instance:

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court used Kevin's case to uphold the death penalty for juveniles under age 18 all over the country. This not only denied Kevin's appeal, it affected the whole country under his name.  Stanford v. Kentucky would remain the law in the United States until the U.S. Supreme Court revisited the issue in 2005 and changed its mind in Roper v. Simmons.  

In the 2005 Roper case, the United States outlawed the death penalty for anyone under age 18, declaring the death penalty cruel and unusual for children under 18 years old.  Kevin Stanford had come close to execution in 2003, two years before the U.S. Supreme Court in Roper announced that it was reversing the decision it had made 16 years earlier in his case. 

Just before this watershed change in the law, Kentucky sought to execute Kevin Stanford in January 2003. Kevin's appeals had mostly run out.  By 2003, his habeas corpus appeals had been decided and a warrant for his execution was pending when Kentucky's Governor Paul Patton in January 2003 commuted Kevin's death sentence to a life without parole sentence.

Kevin had been a prisoner on Kentucky's death row for over 20 years when his death sentence was commuted to life without parole in 2003.  At the time, the law in Kentucky had long-changed to forbid the execution of juveniles, and Kevin was the only juvenile remaining on Kentucky's death row. That year began what now for Kevin has been 20 years of a life without parole sentence.

Nine years later, in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court declared mandatory life without parole sentences unconstitutional for teenagers under age 18 across the United States, in 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court making this law retroactive to anyone under 18 who had received a life sentence at any time, .......thousands of teenagers like my friend Kevin Stanford. Except it would not apply to him.

Because Kevin's life without parole sentence had come from the Governor instead of the court or a jury, he was left with nowhere to go --  no direct avenue in the courts to have them hear about issues like his youth related to his sentence, the details of his rehabilitation, the situation now in 2023, --- Kevin Stanford's record, his community support and re-entry plan for returning to the community as a reformed person after 42 years in prison. Other prisoners who were sentenced as teenagers have this chance.  But not Kevin Stanford. 

When Kevin's attorneys brought this veritable stuck between a rock and a hard place situation to the Kentucky Supreme Court two years ago in 2021, the Kentucky Supreme Court discussed the Governor's executive clemency power and acknowledged that "It appears that Stanford is the last person remaining in the Commonwealth who is serving a LWOP sentence for crimes committed as a juvenile."  (Stanford v. Commonwealth, 643 S.W. 3d 104 (Ky. 2021).   

This is why Governor Beshear must act to bring justice for Kevin Stanford.

Executive Clemency is Necessary & Deserved:

Kevin Stanford has been a model prisoner for decades, but he has no opportunity to show this to the courts after all these decades behind bars.  In all fairness, he should have that chance.  Kevin is not the teenager who was involved in a violent crime 42 years ago. In my opinion as his friend of many years, he is a changed person more than worthy of society's redemption. 

Kevin is an ordained minister.  He is a devout Catholic of many decades.  Kevin studied sociology through Murray State University in the 1990s while still on death row, nearly finishing a bachelor's degree but being curtailed by changes in student assistance for prisoners.  He is an avid musician, historian, philosopher and to his neighbors a good friend.   

Kevin Stanford was moved years ago from high security status to a medium security facility in Eastern Kentucky where he enjoys more freedom.  But still, the time has come to let Kevin Stanford out of prison.

Governor Andy Beshear must act because the law has left a void that must be filled to bring justice for Kevin Stanford after 42 years and a successful rehabilitation.  

If you are still reading, thank you!  If you believe as I do that my friend Kevin Stanford deserves a second chance in his senior years, then I am humbled on his behalf to have your support.  

Stefanie McArdle-Taylor

* This petition is a working document and will be supplemented with attachments and relevant information.  In the meantime, thank you for your time and your support of Kevin Stanford's redemption and his plight.  For further information or to offer your assistance please email me at stefmcesq@yahoo.com