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Kelly Keegan had three clients granted pardon extraordinaries by the Minnesota Pardon Board at their Spring 2022 meeting. One client, a successful insurance executive, retained Kelly to represent him in obtaining a pardon for a 1992 conviction for Felony Fourth Degree Controlled Substance. Another, a retired executive whose conviction had hung over him for decades, hired Kelly to help him obtain a pardon for a 1974 Felony Theft Conviction. The third, a prominent union president, retained Kelly for pardons of two separate 1993 convictions for Felony Possession of a Stolen Firearm and Felony Theft of a Vehicle. All three clients had gone on to successful lives and careers but were still held back and troubled by their convictions. Kelly helped her clients prepare stellar applications and prepare for the hearing. The three-member board, consisting of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court Lorie Gildea, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, were convinced, voting unanimously to grant Kelly’s clients’ pardon extraordinaries at its Spring 2022 meeting.

Kelly’s client retained her after he attempted to purchase a firearm and was denied by the FBI as part of its NICS background check. Kelly examined his record and determined that the only possible reason for the denial was that the FBI had not been informed that her client had been discharged from probation for a 1985 conviction for possession of narcotics in Hennepin County. Kelly obtained the court records verifying that her client had been discharged and provided them to the FBI. The FBI then overturned the transaction denial, entered her client into the VAF, and issued him a UPIN for future firearm purchases.

Kelly’s client grew up hunting and some of his best memories are of hunting as a kid with his family. But he’d given up on ever hunting again due to multiple felony convictions for motor vehicle theft and drug sales in McLeod and Redwood counties. Kelly discovered in speaking with her client that he was extremely active in the recovery community since getting sober and had a compelling story of redemption she felt she could convey. Despite objections by the prosecutor, Kelly was able to convince the judge that her client had rehabilitated and was deserving of a second chance. His gun rights were restored and he may now once again hunt with his family.

Kelly’s client was convicted of Fifth Degree Possession of a Controlled Substance in 2017 after a police officer smelled marijuana in his car during a traffic stop, leading to a lifetime loss of gun rights. Growing up, he went deer hunting with friends and his wife’s family owns hunting land in Northern Minnesota, so losing his rights was a big deal for Kelly’s client. He was also ashamed of the conviction so made excuses when people asked him to go hunting. Her client was discharged from his probation in 2019 and the prosecutor vigorously argued not enough time had passed since the offense and discharge from probation. Kelly was able to convince the judge to restore her client’s gun rights over the prosecutor’s objection so that he may now accept invitations to hunt and spend time with his wife and her relatives on their hunting land.

In 1997 when he was 18, Kelly’s client sold $50 worth of marijuana to a confidential informant in a Taco Bell parking lot in Moorhead, Clay County, and was convicted of Felony Fifth Degree Sale of a Controlled Substance. He went on to a successful career in the music industry and but missed hunting. He finally hired Kelly when his son expressed an interest in hunting, because he did not want his conviction to hold back his son’s interests. Following a hearing in which her client was praised for his productive life since his offense, her client can now go hunting with his son.