Robert Downey Jr. among Gov. Jerry Brown’s 91 Christmas pardons
Actor Robert Downey Jr. was among 91 former criminals Gov. Jerry Brown pardoned on Thursday in keeping with his habit of holiday leniency.
The Iron Man star spent a year and three months in prison after being convicted in 1996 of possessing a controlled substance, carrying a concealed weapon in his vehicle and driving under the influence.
Downey, Jr. contributed $5,000 to Brown’s 2014 re-election bid and was inducted this year into the California Hall of Fame. He also gave about $50,000 this year to a charter school the Democratic governor started when he was mayor of Oakland – the Oakland School for the Arts.
“He has lived an honest and upright life, exhibited good moral character, and conducted himself as a law-abiding citizen,” Brown’s pardon message read, the standard language used in all pardons.
To be eligible for a pardon people must have been out of prison for at least a decade, avoided committing new crimes and, if they still reside in California, have received a court-granted Certificate of Rehabilitation. Anyone applying must have since led a “productive and law‐abiding life,” according to terms laid out by the governor’s office.
Most of the people Brown pardoned had served time for drug-related crimes or for offenses like robberies and vandalism. One man served a year of probation for obtaining a fake ID so he could work at a night club.
While the value of pardons is mainly symbolic, they can carry benefits like allowing recipients to serve on juries, own firearms or work as county probation officers or state parole agents. They do not erase a person’s criminal record.
Brown has made a habit of issuing pardons around Christmas and Easter. He has far outpaced his predecessors in the Governor’s Office, and Thursday’s batch brought his total to 683 since 2011.
The governor rescinded one of last year’s Christmas Eve pardons after the Los Angeles Times reported that the pardon’s recipient had recently had a case before the federal Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Peruse the full list here:
Jeremy B. White: 916-326-5543, @CapitolAlert. Jim Miller and Alexei Koseff of the Bee Capitol Bureau contributed reporting.
This story was originally published December 24, 2015 at 1:59 PM with the headline "Robert Downey Jr. among Gov. Jerry Brown’s 91 Christmas pardons."