"Kid's" pardon opposed by descendant

SANTA FE (AP) - New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has stirred up a historical hornet's nest with his talk of pardoning the Old West outlaw Billy the Kid.

The latest to come out against it is a descendant of the territorial governor who once met with the Kid but never granted him clemency 130 years ago.

William N. Wallace, great-grandson of Civil War Gen. Lew Wallace, said he sees no solid historical foundation for Richardson to offer a posthumous pardon for the Kid, also known as William H. Bonney and Kid Antrim.

"There was nothing in my lifetime knowledge of Gen. Lew Wallace, my great grandfather, that ever suggested that he intended to give William H. Bonney ... a pardon," the 86-year-old Wallace said in a telephone interview from his home in Westport, Conn.

Richardson is considering a pardon to make good on an alleged promise by Gov. Wallace to provide some form of clemency for the Kid in exchange for his testimony about killings during the Lincoln County War.

The Kid was a ranch-hand and gunslinger in the bloody feud between factions vying to dominate the dry goods business and cattle trading in southern New Mexico.

The historical record surrounding the supposedly promised pardon — like many events during New Mexico's turbulent frontier days — is ambiguous and open to conflicting views.

There's no written documents "pertaining in any way" to a pardon in the archive of Wallace's papers maintained by the Indiana Historical Society, according to staff members who sent an e-mail and letter to Richardson last week.

"If Gen. Wallace did not intend to give William H. Bonney a pardon, there is no reason why Gov. Richardson should consider giving William H. Bonney, a murderer, a pardon," said Wallace's great-grandson, a retired New York Times sports writer.

Descendants of Sheriff Pat Garrett — the lawman who shot and killed the Kid on July 14, 1881 — met with Richardson earlier this month to oppose a pardon. The governor told them he accepts historical accounts of the Kid's death.

Richardson has made no decision, said chief of staff Eric Witt. Before the governor would issue any pardon, Witt said, he'd start a formal inquiry and solicit comments from historians and others. The governor's term runs through Dec. 31.

Wallace went to New Mexico in 1878 to help bring an end to the violence of the Lincoln County War. After arriving, he offered general amnesty to those involved in the bloodbath unless they already were under indictment.

That excluded the Kid, who faced murder charges, including for killing a Lincoln County sheriff.

A tantalizing part of the pardon question is a clandestine meeting that Wallace had with the Kid in Lincoln in March 1879.

Letters written by the Kid leave no doubt the Kid wanted Wallace to at least grant him immunity from prosecution if he agreed to testify about killings he had witnessed.

The letters suggest the Kid was looking for a way out of a life of crime. Wallace, in arranging the meeting, responded to the Kid: "I have authority to exempt you from prosecution if you will testify to what you say you know."

The Kid delivered on his testimony. But Wallace never granted any form of clemency, even after the Kid was later convicted of murder and sentenced to hang.

As the Kid awaited his execution in 1881 — and as Wallace prepared to leave New Mexico to become ambassador to Turkey — the Las Vegas, N.M., Gazette asked the outgoing governor about prospects that he would spare the Kid's life.

Wallace replied, "I can't see how a fellow like him should expect any clemency from me."

The Kid escaped from the Lincoln County jail but Garrett tracked him to a ranch near Fort Sumner, N.M.

In the early 1900s, a few years before Wallace died, a pardon for the Kid resurfaced in newspaper articles in which Wallace described his secret meeting with the Kid. Wallace, by then, had achieved literary fame as the author of the historical novel, "Ben Hur."

Wallace's great-grandson questions the accuracy of the newspaper accounts, saying a number of facts are wrong. They describe the meeting between Gov. Wallace and the Kid, for instance, as taking place in Santa Fe rather than Lincoln.

"I am smelling a rat right off the bat," William Wallace said.

Doug Clanin of Anderson, Ind., who retired after serving as editor of the Wallace papers for the Indiana Historical Society, said Gov. Wallace became quite famous and in his later years was adept at "improving on old stories" as he entertained audiences on a lecture circuit.

Historian Frederick Nolan, who lives in London and has written extensively about the Lincoln County War, said in an e-mail that "there does not seem to me to be the slightest doubt that Wallace indeed made some kind of promise to the Kid" and that was at least immunity from prosecution, which could have set aside two indictments for murder.

As for a posthumous pardon, Nolan said, "Speaking for myself, I'd sort of like to see the Kid pardoned because — at the time the 'arrangement' was made — he surely