State pardon board
denies Maloney bid
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July 15, 2006
The chairwoman of Gov. Jim Doyle's Pardon Advisory Board has rejected a
former Green Bay police detective's request to present evidence to show
his wife's death was an accident, not murder, a spokesman for the
governor said Friday.
A jury convicted John Maloney, 49, of strangling his estranged wife and
setting fire to her home in 1998. He has repeatedly said he did not
kill his wife, but he has exhausted his appeals in state court.
John and Sandy Maloney were going through a divorce and custody battle
when the woman's charred corpse was found in February 1998 in her Green
Bay home. Prosecutors say Maloney, an arson investigator, struck his
wife with a blunt object, strangled her and then set fire to the home
to try to cover up the crime.
Maloney applied to the Pardon Advisory Board in Madison for a waiver of
rules that would allow him to present evidence in his wife's death, his
sister, Virginia Maloney, said in a statement this week. The six-member
board reviews applications for executive clemency and makes
recommendations to the governor.
Matt Canter, a spokesman for Doyle, said Friday the chairwoman of the
board, Amy Kasper, denied the waiver this week without explanation.
Since Doyle took office about four years ago, the board has granted
only one waiver of the three requirements needed to get a case before
the board, Canter said. "It is not something that is common in any
way," he said.
To come before the Pardon Advisory Board, an applicant must be
convicted of felony and no longer be incarcerated, and more than five
years must have elapsed from the completion of all sentences, Canter
said.
Virginia Maloney did not immediately return a message Friday left at a
phone number listed on the family's Web site.
In Maloney's original trial in 1999, Maloney's defense tried to pin
Sandy Maloney's death on his then-girlfriend Tracy Hellenbrand, who
cooperated with prosecutors in gathering evidence against him. But the
jury rejected the argument. He was sentenced to life in prison with no
eligibility for parole until 2024.
Maloney contends that his wife's death was an accident — the result of
alcohol poisoning — and that she was brain dead at the time the fire
started. Maloney maintains that the fire, which snuffed itself out
before destroying the home, was an accident.
Maloney failed to get a new trial in two appeals to the Wisconsin
Supreme Court, including one that argued that a prosecutor who was
later convicted of bribery and misconduct in other cases acted
illegally in the murder case.
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