Last week’s New York Times Magazine featured a compelling article about the “Norfolk Four,” a group of Navy men who apparently were pressured into false confessions for a rape and murder despite no physical evidence linking them to the crime. A fifth man later confessed and was linked to the crime by DNA evidence. But under pressure from investigators, he apparently changed his story from saying he acted alone to saying he acted with seven accomplices. As a result, the Norfolk Four remain in jail.

How compelling is the evidence that the four men should not be imprisoned?

[T]he Norfolk Four count a growing list of supporters, including four former Virginia attorneys general, one of them a Republican, who have no obvious motive for suggesting that the state perpetrated a major miscarriage of justice. Richard Cullen, who was appointed a U.S. attorney under President George H. W. Bush and attorney general by former Gov. George Allen, said the “totality of the scientific evidence” and “the crime scene being inconsistent with the prosecution theory” convinced him that the four are innocent.

The problem, however, is that Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia went to great lengths to signal that he was not a liberal Democrat during his campaign, and being tough on crime is part of that persona:

Governor Kaine, a Democrat, will be under enormous pressure to reject clemency for the three defendants serving life sentences and a fourth who was released after more than eight years in prison. Two of the defendants were convicted by juries, which governors are loath to second-guess (Dick and a second defendant pleaded guilty and were never tried), and the victim’s family is adamantly opposed to a pardon. Moreover, a pardon would probably be seen as a tacit repudiation of the police and prosecutors. Cullen, who advised Governor Allen on clemency matters, said he decided to speak out in part because he believes that Kaine should be free to grant clemency without being attacked by Republicans.

And sadly, we all remember what happened when another ambitious Southern governor came under pressure to prove his toughness on crime. Bill Clinton interrupted his 1992 presidential campaign to preside over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, an African American mentally retarded man who saved part of his last meal for later. Let’s hope Kaine can muster the courage to rise above politics and pardon these men.