Ward Bird’s pardon request to be heard by the New Hampshire Executive Council tomorrow

  I have written several posts on Ward Bird–the New Hampshire man who was sentenced to three years in jail for defending his property–in the past and tomorrow it will be decided whether or not Ward Bird is granted a pardon hearing. I am not going to go into the details which I have already covered–because there is new information that I feel I must write about today–so for those of  you unfamiliar with the case, you can read more here, here, and here.

  Unfortunately, the New Hampshire Union Leader article which this post is based on was only available in the print edition, so I will not be able to link to the article that I am quoting.

  Tomorrow Ward Bird’s case will be heard and from there it will be decided whether or not his pardon request is allowed to move forward. Ward Bird is fighting for a complete pardon which would exonerate him and clear his record of the felony for which he is currently serving.  Claiming that “I can’t stress enough that this is a matter of my innocence” he declared, “I have no prior history. I have not committed what I have been accused of. Period.”

  During the trail the jury was not allowed to hear about Ward Bird’s accuser’s past–which included a criminal record. And as Ward Bird claims in the article, “I don’t believe the evidence shows that I ever committed a crime. It’s her word against mine.” And he is right about this; the jury heard testimony from his accuser–Christine Harris–who claimed that Ward Bird came out of his house brandishing a weapon and swearing at her. She has called him a bully who was only trying to intimidate her from buying a property in the area.

  Ward Bird claims, “I never pointed it or waved the gun at Ms. Harris. I insist that I am telling the truth. Exactly what happened that day was that I removed the firearm from behind my back, took the magazine out of it, checked to make sure the chamber was clear, and turned an entered my home.”

  Here is where it might get a little bit troubling for the prospects of Ward Bird’s pardon:

  When talking to the police who came to investigate the incident, Ward Bird admitted that he over-reacted when he started shouting obscenities at Christine Harris. Those that do not support his pardon request are using this admission of over-reaction as proof that Ward Bird was not justified in using non-lethal force to urge Christine Harris to leave his property. But what they are neglecting is that when Ward Bird claimed he over-reacted he was talking about his swearing and not about his decision to carry–he claims he carries all the time. His critics are using this admission to brand him as a bully and as someone who is not stable enough to be allowed to carry.

  In my opinion this alone would not be enough to deny Ward Bird his pardon, but the new revelations do not end there. As I wrote in my original posts on this issue, Ward Bird has no criminal background, and Ward Bird reiterated that in a quote that I used above. But it turns out that is not entirely true.

  In 1985 he was convicted of resisting arrest as well as a 1980 arrest for marijuana possession. But there is one more episode that is more damaging to Ward Bird’s pardon request and it is being speculated that it is because of this incident that Ward Bird did not take the stand in his own defense. In 2002–during Bike Week–Ward Bird and his buddies began firing their handguns at a tree stump for a little fun. One of Ward Bird’s shots was off target and sailed into the house of a nearby resident. Ward Bird was charged with unauthorized use of a firearm, but the charge was negotiated down to a mere violation once Ward Bird agreed to replace the window and bedroom door and the victim was happy enough with that to drop the charges.

  It is this last incident that I feel may cost Ward Bird his last chance at freedom. In the trial in which he was convicted the jury knew nothing about Christine Harris’s background and they knew nothing about Ward Bird’s background, it was Ward Bird’s word against his accuser’s word and I honestly still do not understand how he was convicted in the first place. But he was, so now the question is: when the Executive Council reviews his pardon request and they see his history, will this be enough to deny his pardon, or will the Council simply look at the facts in this one case? 

  It is a little troubling to me that he could be so reckless with a firearm back in 2002, but he has been a model citizen since that point and Moultonborough Police Chief Tom Dawson claims that Ward Bird poses no threat to society. I am now not as certain as I once was about the prospects of Ward Bird’s pardon; what do you think in light of these new revelations? We will know what the Executive Council thinks soon enough.