The president alone has the power to grant a pardon, which erases the label and penalties attached to commission of a crime, and those pardoned are often selected to meet political obligations. Yet there are prisoners who deserve to be pardoned for the simple reason that they have committed no crime -- or, in the case of Michael Pardue, acted only to reject wrongful acts by the state. PNS commentator Joe Loya is a California writer currently writing a memoir on his experience in prison. His e-mail address is buddhalobo@aol.com.

President Clinton granted Christmastime pardons to 59 people, and freed three from prison.

Dan Rostenkowski, former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, a Democrat, was on the list, although he would not be eligible to request a pardon through the Justice Department for a few years yet. Archie Schaffer III, a chicken company executive and friend of the President for almost 30 years, convicted for trying to influence the Secretary of Agriculture, was on the list. So was Rick Hendrick III, a NASCAR team owner, sentenced for bribery and mail fraud.

Christmas recalls the birth of the most innocent man ever crucified. So it would have been fitting for the President to free one of the most innocent men in the country, Michael Pardue, instead of his guilty friends.

When Pardue was 16, his father killed his mother in Alabama. A year later he stole a car to impress a girlfriend. Pardue's joyride happened on the night of a local serial killing. When he was arrested for the car theft, he was interrogated by Bill Travis, a detective known for his penchant to beat a correct answer out of suspects.

A detective from a nearby county assisted in the interrogation. It lasted 72 hours. Pardue wasn't allowed to call his grandmother and two attorneys were turned away. Finally, Travis told Pardue that if he confessed to the murders then he would probably be given a cell near his father so he could avenge his mother.

Pardue's trial lasted 2 hours. No fingerprints, blood-stained clothes or witnesses were ever produced.

Several lawmen involved in the case eventually proved to be criminals themselves:

- Detective Travis, fired for brutality several months later;

- Detective Bobby Stewart, convicted for conspiracy to smuggle marijuana a few years later;

- Willis Holloway, Mobile County prosecutor, eventually incarcerated for extortion and bribery;

- James Hendrix, Baldwin County prosecutor, also served time for conspiracy to smuggle marijuana.

Pardue escaped three times during his 27 years in prison.

The first time, he faked the warden's signature and had himself transferred to a minimum security prison. There he got to help train the hounds. He convinced the guards to use him as bait, to pretend to escape into the woods. When his scent was finally everywhere in the forest, he one day didn't return.

The second time he drank a lot of water and held in his urine. He developed a kidney infection but the doctors diagnosed him with appendicitis. In the hospital, he woke up minus the appendix, his foot cuffed to the bed frame. An old guard slept in a nearby chair. Pardue slipped the keys from the guard's key chain and un-cuffed himself. He stole the guard's gun and handcuffed him to the bed. The guard said, "Please, I need my heart medicine." So Pardue got the medication from the guard's pocket and gave it to him.

The final escape was facilitated by the warden's Corvette. That time he went looking for his father who had been released from prison. He found him, drunk, a year away from death. He offered the old man forgiveness.

In 1997, the Alabama Supreme Court struck down his conviction on the basis that his confession was coerced. When he showed up for re-sentencing in the county where he'd originally been convicted, the prosecutor stood up and said to the judge, "I have here three new prior acts that will show Mr. Pardue was a habitual offender." He was using the three escapes as three-strikes.

Two centuries ago it was against the law for a slave to run away to freedom. Apparently it is still illegal for a person to resist unlawful incarceration.

President-elect Bush nominated Senator John Ashcroft, a gospel-singing son of a preacher, to be Attorney General. Bush said Ashcroft "will be faithful to the law, pursuing justice without favor."