Patrick Baker

I bet you guys thought I would be done with Kentucky cases! Well, to be fair, I thought I was for a while too. I checked out a few more on my list that were clustered with the last several I have done recently and nothing “caught my bones.” So I moved on and it just so happened the next case that I decided to write about is from Kentucky. But, I will say this is not a death penalty case so it is not completely like the others. In fact, this case is quite interesting because it first involves what is called the “dual sovereignty doctrine.” Basically it means that state governments and the federal government are considered to be separate with their own laws and their own ability to prosecute. You may have often heard about “double jeopardy.” That is the law that says you cannot be tried twice for the same crime. But, with all things there are exceptions and this case is an example of one of those.

This case also addresses the power given to officials. We have heard a lot about that the last few years. There were questions about some pardons that Donald Trump issued to some people that had been convicted of crimes. There has also been questions of people who were in his inner circle who were asking about receiving pardons before he left office. Well, that is kind of what happened in Kentucky. Matt Bevin's term as Governor had been filled with strife and that is saying something. Bevin was a Republican in a pretty red state. I say it that way because they have only had three Republican Governors since World War II but most of their senators and legislatures are Republicans. This is the state in which hails Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, two of the most staunch Republicans in the business. This should not be a surprise really because Kentucky is a “coal state” and most of those are Red States. In fact, it is a big more surprising that they have had so many Democratic Governors. Now, I suspect part of his issue began right at the start. In 2013 Bevin, a wealthy businessman, decided he was going to run against Mitch McConnell for his seat the following year. McConnell runs some fairly vicious and some say false, attack ads when he's running and despite what many may think of him the people of Kentucky continue to elect him. So, Bevin lost and yet, after all the attacks on him when Bevin decided to run for Governor the next year Mitch McConnell was on his side. Now, I am not a fan of McConnell so I will say this behavior is not unusual for him. He quite often speaks out of “both sides of his mouth.” But, Bevin barely won the Republican nomination. In fact, he only won by .03 percent of the votes. He was serving that term, as I said filled with strife and decided to run again in 2019.

A big thing against Bevin throughout his term was an issue with teacher's pensions. I will not go into all the details about it but let's just say he did not have one of the biggest organizations in the state on his side when he ran again. He won the Republican nomination again, more than he had the first time but that's likely because he was the incumbent at the time and those are generally easier to win but then he lost to Andy Beshear who was the Attorney General and ran as the Democratic nominee. It is unclear if Bevin's next actions after finally conceding the election were in his mind legitimate or figuratively speaking sending a big middle finger to the State of Kentucky. When he was done neither political party was happy with him.

Within the last few days of his term Bevin issued more than 400 pardons and or gave clemency to some. It was said that a vast majority of these were to those convicted for low level drug crimes but they not all of them were. There were several that were questionable. One was to a woman named Elizabeth Stakelbeck who was said to be a friend of Bevin's wife and sister. She had attempted to hire a hit man to murder her ex-husband and his new wife. The hit man was an undercover agent. By December of 2019 she had served her time but said he issued a pardon because “the compelling testimony of Elizabeth's friends and family and her desire for a fresh start in life.” Another was a man named Johiem Bandy who at fifteen was given a thirteen year sentence for robbery and assault. He had served two years when Bevin pardoned him. In June 2022 he again was arrested and is currently awaiting trial for charges of strangulation, assault and other charges. A man by the name of Dayton Jones had his sentenced commuted. He had been convicted of sodomizing an unconscious fifteen year old boy. In 2021 he pleaded guilty in federal court for pornography charges and received an eight year sentence. And this brings us to Patrick Baker. This, I believe was the one that sent politicians on all sides over the edge. After he left office the new Attorney General and the head of the Republican Party in Kentucky asked the Department of Justice and the FBI to get involved and start an investigation into the pardons.

Baker came from a fairly prominent family. In fact, in 2018 Patrick's brother, Eric and his wife had hosted a fundraiser for Matt Bevin and his campaign. Patrick was convicted in 2017 and was serving a nineteen year sentence on charges of reckless homicide, first degree robbery, impersonating a peace officer and tampering with evidence. He had served about two and a half years of his sentence when in December 2019 Matt Bevin issued him a pardon. Bevin's reasoning was that he had been convicted on “sketchy evidence.”

On May 9, 2014 Patrick Baker and a man named Christopher Wagner posed as U.S. Marshals and entered the Stinking Creek (Yes, it really is a place) home of Donald Mills in Knox County in Eastern Kentucky. Once inside they held Donald, his pregnant wife and their children hostage while they ransacked the home looking for Oxycodone pills and cash. There is not a lot of information about how things got out of hand. Baker would claim that Mills pulled a gun on him and he was “forced” to shoot him. Authorities would see it another way. Donald Mills would be shot and killed while his wife and children watched. One report says his mother was also present and held him as he died, but to be fair I am uncertain about this. Some reports said along with the family there was a “guest” but never mentioned a name and only the one report mentioned his mother.

It is not clear exactly how both Baker and Wagner were caught. It could have been possible that Mills and/or his family recognized him at the scene but I cannot say for sure. According to Wagner who apparently testified in the 2017 trial, after leaving the Mills home the two men went to Bell County where they buried parts of the gun. He would take authorities to this area. Shell casings from the crime scene were said to be linked to the gun and the gun belonged to Baker. Even Baker does not dispute that he owned the gun used in the crime. I am also going to be a bit fair here and say I am uncertain exactly what other evidence was presented at this trial. I will get into what evidence there is against Baker in a bit but as far as this 2017 trial I am going to leave it at the fact that the jury convicted him. It appears that Wagner pleaded guilty and accepted a plea deal. He was given ten years each for the charges of first degree manslaughter and first degree robbery. It seems that they are running concurrently, meaning together and he is eligible for parole in October of 2022. According to the Kentucky Department of Corrections website it is likely that he will be paroled then but his max out date is in April of 2024, meaning he cannot be kept longer than that time.

Then came December of 2019 and Matt Bevin's flurry of pardons. Prosecutors and family members of victim were extremely irate because no one had been given any clue that this was going to go on. As an investigation was launched it seems that the federal government began looking at the more high profile cases involved, including Patrick Baker. Federal authorities made it clear they would do what they had to to get Patrick Baker back behind bars. It took them a bit, but let me tell you as someone who has had dealing with Federal prosecutors and the system, justice comes slowly sometimes.

In May of 2021 a federal grand jury indicted Baker on charges of using a gun during a drug trafficking offense. This is where the dual sovereignty doctrine comes in. I am sure Baker's attorney's attempted to stop the investigation and indictment using the idea of double jeopardy. I say this without seeing it because despite knowing that it is legal to do so I have never seen a case in which an attorney still does not try to use that legal maneuver. In the end his attorney's would admit that it was legal and there was nothing really to fight it. Instead there would just be a new trial, only this time at the federal level, and it would be their job to defend their client.

Baker's trial began in August of 2021. While I admitted that I do not know just what evidence was presented at his state trial what I can say is that if the same evidence that was presented in his federal trial was presented at his state trial Matt Bevin's comment that the evidence was “sketchy” is not accurate.

The federal prosecutors were able to show that this was a planned job by Baker. He had saved a picture of the Mills home from Google Earth on his Ipad and had been bragging to at least one person, some say more, that he was “getting ready to make a big score.” His ex-wife, among others, testified that he had confessed to the crime. To his wife in particular he had said that Mills “pulled a gun on me and I had to shoot.” Wagner also apparently testified at this trial also and told about the shooting and what they had done with the weapon. Prosecutors had a surveillance video from a Dollar General in London Kentucky that showed seven hours before the crime Baker was seen buying “plastic handcuffs.” The same type of handcuffs were later found just feet from where Donald Mills was shot. And, despite what you will hear me say later that Baker himself testified to, cell tower records tracked him from London, to Stinking Creek, to Bell County where Wagner stated they had buried pieces of the weapon.

Baker got on the stand and still proclaimed innocence. As far as the confession, he said that was not an actual confession to his now ex-wife, Lori Hammack, but he had said he felt “responsible” and she must have misunderstood him. He had to admit that the gun used in the crime was his, but he claimed that a man by the name of Adam Messer, a convicted felon, “found” it in his truck and took. He went on to claim that Wagner, along with Messer were the ones to blame for the crime, not him.

I did not hear anything about a jury or how a conclusion was made in this case. I only heard the conclusion and remarks from the judge. I cannot say if this was a jury trial or a bench trial (where only the judge decides) to be fair. But, if this case proves anything it is “careful what you wish for” and “maybe you should not run your mouth,” let alone commit crimes. Baker was found guilty. And this time the judge “wasn't playing.” Baker was sentenced to forty-two years in a federal prison, with three years of supervised release and was ordered to pay the victim's family $7,500 for funeral expenses. He was given credit for the thirty months he served in the state prison before Bevin pardoned him. The federal government calculates things by months so while I said forty-two years, by their calculations it is 504 months! This was more than double than the nineteen years he got sentenced in state court. To add to this he may have served half of that nineteen years in Kentucky but federal rules are much different. There is no parole. An inmate serves 85% of their sentence. Now, they are entitled to 10% or “up to one year” in a half way house or home confinement that does come off of the 85%. This means that Baker will have to serve 428 months which is more than thirty-five years.... minus the thirty months he served previously. He will be eighty-three years old before he is eligible for release.

I want to point out that when he was sentenced the judge stated that he had obstructed justice, not just by trying to destroy the weapon and bury it, but also by perjuring himself.  The judge flat stated that Baker lied on the stand when he testified on his own behalf.

After the flurry of news when Bevin issued all of those pardons on the way out the door, and the calls for investigations over the next few months things seemed to die out. Other than the fact that the state began working on laws to limit the power of the Governor in some cases I have not heard a lot. In fact, I am unsure that any of those laws were passed. It does seem however that the federal government may not be done working on looking at those cases and the media is not against pointing out when someone Bevin pardoned gets in trouble again.

By the way, I promise my next one will not be a Kentucky story!  I already know what I want to do next.