TWO SIDES OF CLEMENCY
 

Granholm denies killer's freedom request

Friends, family, officials weigh in on both sides
 

BY DAWSON BELL
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Second of two parts
 

IONIA -- Time may have the capacity to heal all wounds. But 24 years doesn't.

That was obvious during two hours of gut-wrenching testimony from the family of murder victim John Hubbard at a hearing last month to consider whether one of his killers should be freed.

"Roger Ruthruff hated my husband," his wife, Lola Hubbard, told the state panel considering whether to recommend clemency to Gov. Jennifer Granholm. "Roger Ruthruff planned the murder. Roger Ruthruff needs to continue to wake up every day behind those prison bars ... and think about what he took from us."

Ruthruff bowed his head and listened quietly to her words. He was 18 in 1986, when the robbery of a mid-Michigan grocery went awry and his partner bludgeoned Hubbard.

With a spotless prison record, his secondary role in the crime and his youth at the time, Ruthruff is one of the rare but increasing number of Michigan prisoners who get the chance to make a formal plea for commutation.

But Granholm said through a spokeswoman Sunday that she won't be setting Ruthruff free.

That's great news for Hubbard's family. "My dad didn't get a second chance," said Teresa Hubbard Katey.

How commutation bid failed

When Roger Ruthruff was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole in 1986, family members of the man he was convicted of killing didn't think they needed to sign up to be notified when he would be considered for release.

After all, with no possibility of parole, Ruthruff would die in prison, right?

That depends.

In November, the Michigan Parole and Commutation Board announced that Ruthruff would be considered for for a commutation recommendation after 24 years behind bars. The family of John Hubbard, a Charlotte grocery store manager slain in a botched robbery committed by Ruthruff and a codefendant, was angry.

The case is a stark illustration of what Gov. Jennifer Granholm meant when she said in an interview with the Free Press on Friday that each request for clemency is unique.

"There is no hard and fast rule about who is in and who is out," she said.

On Sunday, the governor's office told the Free Press that Granholm would not commute Ruthruff's sentence.

In her seven years in office, Granholm has commuted 124 sentences, at least 100 of them in the last two years. During that time, she has denied more than 6,000 requests.

But before Granholm ended Ruthruff's bid for freedom on Sunday, he had cleared one of the most daunting hurdles to commutation: making it to a public hearing before the board. The hearing is the correctional equivalent of going to Hollywood on "American Idol"; only 226 have been held in Granholm's 85 months as governor.

Granholm's decision to end Ruthruff's quest came on the day the Free Press reported her commutations were more than those of her three predecessors going back to 1969 (including Gov. William Milliken, who was in office for 14 years and gave 95 commutations, and Gov. John Engler, who issued 34 in 12 years in office).

Still, for individual prisoners, the chances of commutation are daunting today; there are about 45,000 inmates, compared with 8,000 in 1973.

Here is what the parole and commutation board heard Jan. 25 in a prison waiting room that had been set up for Ruthruff's hearing in Ionia.

The crime

Ruthruff, an 18-year-old who grew up on a farm in Eaton County, and his then-best friend Joseph Ambrose hatched a plot for an after-hours robbery of a grocery store in Charlotte where Ruthruff had worked for three years.

It was Saturday, Jan. 18, 1986. Ruthruff knew the manager would be alone closing up before securing the day's receipts in an office safe. He said he wanted the money for "car and motorcycle payments."

The pair entered the store separately -- Ruthruff stopped stopping to chat with manager John Hubbard, then hid in a back room. Ruthruff said he was making his way toward the front of the store when he heard a scream and the sound of breaking glass as Ambrose attacked Hubbard with a metal bar. The pair fled without taking anything, leaving Hubbard -- his skull crushed -- on the floor.

Ruthruff went to work the next day at his new job across the street. At one point, he joined onlookers watching police at the grocery. He was arrested two weeks later after failing a polygraph.

Ruthruff and Ambrose were convicted of first-degree felony murder (murder in the commission of another felony) and sentenced to life without parole.

Case for commutation

Ruthruff said in 1986, and has said since then, that Hubbard's death was an unforeseen event about which he felt "horrible."

Testimony at his trial that he disliked Hubbard from his time working at the store was false, Ruthruff said. Participating in the murder of a father with four young children was the impulsive act of an 18-year-old who "didn't take into consideration anything," he said. "Back then, I didn't put a value on human life at all."

Ruthruff and his supporters at the hearing said he has matured now and takes full responsibility for the crime. His behavior in prison has been exemplary, prompting his warden in Ionia to recommend commutation. Friends and family said Ruthruff could be a productive citizen.

"If there was a way to repay" the Hubbard family, "I would," Ruthruff said.

Case against commutation

Eaton County Prosecutor Jeffrey Sauter told the board that commutation is an extraordinary power to be used in extraordinary cases.

"This is not it," he said.

Ruthruff was the leader and mastermind of the plot, of which the natural conclusion was Hubbard's death, Sauter said.

Hubbard's wife, Lola Hubbard, and three of his children voiced fervent objection.

Hubbard's son John, who was 4 in 1986, tearfully recounted that he had almost no memory of his father, and had to ask his older sisters, "What was he like?" Then, turning to Ruthruff, he said, "Do us all a favor and stay right where you are. You reap what you sow."

Granholm has commuted the sentences of at least 36 convicted murderers during the last two years. Most have been seriously ill or have served more than 30 years behind bars. On Friday, she said her decisions are based on input from prison officials, law enforcement personnel and the public.

"If there is strong opposition from the victims ... I take that very seriously," she said.

Hardening attitudes

Barb Levine, director of Citizens Alliance on Prisons & Public Spending, which advocates for reductions in Michigan's prison population, said commutation for first-degree murder was less extraordinary before public sentiment about crime and criminals hardened in the 1970s and '80s. Research by the group found that 57% of those convicted of first-degree murder between 1900 and 1969 were released after serving an average of 23.6 years.

But for Hubbard's survivors, 24 years hasn't been enough time served for Ruthruff.

"At the time this happened, I was so bitter I wanted capital punishment," Lola Hubbard said after the hearing. Then, nodding toward the clanging prison gates that still hold inside the men convicted of killing her husband, she said: "This is better."

Contact DAWSON BELL: 517-372-8661 or dbell@freepress.com