Parole order signed for Michigan killer

LANSING, Mich., Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm has signed an order that will release a woman who has been in prison for 11 years for killing her ex-boyfriend.

Kylleen Hargrave-Thomas, 56, will be paroled next month under the order Granholm signed commuting her sentence from life.

"Kylleen's intention is to live a quiet, productive life, her lawyer, DePaul University Law School Professor Andrea Lyon, told the Detroit Free Press Wednesday.

The commutation, the 25th signed by Granholm this year, ended an appellate battle in which a federal judge ruled in 2002 that Hargrave-Thomas had received inadequate representation from her lawyer and was likely innocent in the 1991 stabbing of Joseph Bernal in Westland.

The Free Press said state parole officials recommended the sentence be commuted after a hearing in which a representative of Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., urged her release.

While commutation does not absolve Hargrave-Thomas of her guilt, her pending parole did not sit well with Bernal's family, the Free Press reported.

"It's a political move and why Sen. Carl Levin got involved, we don't

know," Susan Bernal, the victim's widow, said Tuesday.