Patrick Baker’s family hosted a fund-raiser for the former governor, Matt Bevin, before he was pardoned in 2019. He was convicted by a federal jury this summer and sentenced to 42 years in prison.
A Kentucky man who was pardoned by the state’s former governor in 2019 was sentenced to 42 years in prison this week on federal charges for the same murder, the Justice Department said. Federal officials were able to put the man, Patrick Baker,43, on trial for a second time under the dual sovereignty doctrine, which allows defendants to be prosecuted for the same crime in both federal and state court. The case came under scrutiny after The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Ky., reported that Mr. Baker’s brother had hosted a fund-raiser at his home for the governor, Matt Bevin. “The judge found that the separate-sovereigns doctrine applied to this case,” Gabrielle Dudgeon, a spokeswoman for the U. S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Kentucky, said on Wednesday, a day after Mr. Baker was sentenced. “Very basically, it states that the state government and federal government are separate sovereigns, each with their own laws and ability to prosecute.” Posing as a United States marshal, Mr. Baker killed Donald L. Mills Jr. during a home invasion in May 2014, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Mr. Mills’s wife and children were held at gunpoint while Mr.
