Former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin pardoned more than 400 convicts and some of those decisions are causing controversy. One of those cases was a Lexington man convicted of killing his six-week-old son. The baby's mother said she was appalled by the release.
Kurt Smith was 17-years-old when his infant son Blake was murdered. Smith was watching the newborn and claims he dropped the child on a hard floor. The jury did not buy his story. Smith was convicted of wanton murder.
Blake's mother says an autopsy showed that her son had Shaken Baby Syndrome. His injuries were so severe it was like the child had been thrown from a four story building. Smith was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
Smith served 18 years, but is now free after Bevin pardoned him, saying that he had been duly punished for his criminal actions.
Blake's mother doesn't see it that way and says she has never gotten over her son's death.
"My whole life since the time I was 17-years-old has been a living hell. I've worried about this day forever, but I never thought it would be this soon," Jessica Rudenis said. "He didn't just shake a baby because it was crying in the middle of the night because he was tired. He brutally beat my son to death."
Rudenis said she never got over her son's death and in fact, her sister-in-law Theresa Oiler now raises her other children because of her emotional struggles with drug addiction.
"He might be letting one family celebrate that a son got to go home today, but I'll be mourning the loss of my son for 18 years and that will never stop," she said.
Smith was also charged with rioting and hitting a corrections guard over the head with a rock during the Northpoint Prison Riots in 2009. It is noted that in prison, Smith helped train dogs, but Rudenis and her sister-in-law believe that is not enough.
"He didn't do his homework," Oiler said of the former governor.
