Dear Mr. Hill, As of right now, it looks like the Attorney General’s office is yours to lose. I think this can be credited to your dedicated campaigning and to your campaign’s financial resources. You are certainly wrapping up a long list of influential endorsements: most of the Indiana’s prosecutors and the state branch of the Fraternal Order of Police. The Indiana GOP establishment is on your side. I don’t see anything that your electoral opponent, Democrat Lorenzo Arredondo, is doing to cause you to lose any sleep at night. In case you’re wondering, Arredondo’s campaign backed away from making a statement about Keith Cooper’s case several weeks ago. (I had thought we were getting somewhere with them.) And supporters of Cooper have not heard a word from Democrat John Gregg’s gubernatorial campaign. Let me summarize what we have had so far as examples of political courage in our efforts: a tweet from Indiana Senate Democrats and a letter sent to Governor Pence from GOP state representative Dave Ober. Of all the state’s politicians, Mr. Ober is the only one to have stood alone in support of Cooper, and that counts for something with me. As for press coverage of all of this, gee, has that ever been a tough nut to crack! Until last week, this petition effort had never been mentioned in any press. It has only been since we began to target you directly by calling and emailing your prosecutor’s office that we have gotten any press and the response from Governor Pence’s legal counsel. If we regard the Chicago press as regional, the only thing we have gotten national in the past week is a Washington Times posting of an Associated Press article and DailyKos snark largely reusing a Chicago Tribune article. I wouldn’t say the press is on Pence’s and your side, but the silence has been golden, hasn’t it? And I pissed off a major activist reporter several weeks ago, so I have not been very good at this “reaching out to the press” stuff. Petition supporters are now reaching out to the vice presidential debate moderator with a new petition, but that’s more to get attention to Pence’s words and inaction than it is to get attention to you: https://www.change.org/p/elaine-quijano-ask-pence-about-a-pardon-for-keith-cooper. At one point late last month, I had a few days when I did not see a way forward for this pardon effort. Though I didn’t really want to give up, I didn’t have an idea for a next step. Then you attended the opening of the Trump-Pence campaign headquarters, got into a conversation with Caleb Walden, and said some things about Keith Cooper’s case that made no sense at all: https://www.facebook.com/PardonKeithCooper/posts/591575414344242:0. It was only then that we noticed what you had to do with his case back in 2006. So, I owe you a sort of ironic thank you for your comments to Mr. Walden. I might have admitted defeat by now if you hadn’t helped us to see what else could have been going on with Pence not granting the pardon. Still, we have had to pressure your office directly, and I have to encourage our supporters to continue doing so until we get through to you and Governor Pence that there is a right thing to do here. I am encouraging supporters of this petition to continue the phone calls and emails (http://www.elkhartcountyprosecutor.com/contact) this upcoming week. (By the way, you have a great staff. They have been unfailingly polite when I’ve called, and they have even been patient with me when I got mixed up and starting talking about Curtis Cooper and Keith Hill. My university students know that I mix up names all the time, but still I felt ridiculous. I wish I had gotten your staff person’s name to thank her. Your staff stands in contrast to what I’ve heard about and experienced from the governor’s staff.) I am willing to back away from your campaign and office if you would do just one thing: Follow the example of the former deputy prosecutor Michael Christofeno and write a letter to Governor Pence encouraging him to pardon Cooper. You might as well release your letter publicly, just as Pence did his letter last week publicly, because, as I think about it, Governor Pence threw you under the bus with that letter. He almost had to, politically, but still . . . you cannot really like what he is suggesting should happen. Regardless of what you said at the Trump-Pence headquarters, I don’t know whether you believe that Keith Cooper is innocent of the 1997 robbery charge. If you do, you have a personal conflict to deal with, arguing in favor of maintaining the 2006 deal. And I understand that you almost have to do so. As I see it, the legal question any further litigation will have to answer is, Can a person released from prison with an agreement not to appeal a conviction still appeal a conviction? Pence’s legal counsel suggests that the answer might be a “yes” in some way. As a matter of justice for Keith Cooper, the answer should also be yes for him. But as a matter of public policy, you and those 40 prosecutors who have endorsed you have got to be praying that the answer is no. Because you and they cannot possibly want a situation in which many people who have made a deal to be released from prison get to re-argue for their actual innocence. Legally, you probably have a winnable position. Morally and politically, your position is untenable because even Pence, through his legal counsel, has indicated that Cooper’s petition for a pardon may be reconsidered once all judicial remedies have been exhausted. So, for you, why bother? All of this would have to cost you the trouble of planning court arguments and the expense to your county. And does the prosecutor who will succeed you in Elkhart County if you win the election want to litigate against a man no one is any longer arguing is guilty? So far, in the court of published opinion, there has not been even one supporter for the position you would have to maintain. I am again calling upon you to take the example of the former deputy prosecutor Michael Christofeno: write a letter calling upon Governor Pence now to go ahead and pardon Keith Cooper. Spare yourself a court argument which, even if you win, you will probably lose. A pardon from Pence would spare you all of this, especially since his counsel has suggested that Pence might do the pardon even if you win in court. If you write Pence to support a pardon, I will say so in a petition update, asking our supporters to turn their efforts solely back to Pence. But until then, I have to ask them to continue to call and email your office. Your next step is up to you. Sincerely, Jack Heller