Micheal Blanding writes in this week’s Boston Globe Magazine that “The Long Shadow of Willie Horton” has put an end to the commutation of prison sentences in Massachusetts, regardless of the specifics of any case. The case of Willie Horton, a Bay State prisoner who raped a woman after escaping from a weekend furlough authorized by Gov. Michael Dukakis, may have forever changed the decision-making process in the Corner Office:

… years later, it lays bare the thorny political calculus of letting a felon out of jail. There is almost nothing for a governor to gain and everything for him to lose should the criminal commit another crime. “Ever since what Willie Horton did to Mike Dukakis, governors are going to think not twice but 10 times before they ever commute anyone,” says retired judge Robert Barton, who presided over the Donovan case. Tufts University political science professor Jeffrey Berry agrees. “If I was a governor’s adviser,” he says, “I would recommend he be very cautious.”

The last commutation in Massachusetts came in 1997; governors Cellucci, Swift, Romney, and Patrick have all turned down all requests for shortened sentences.

Blanding notes that there are now 57 individuals in Bay State prisons who were sentenced to life without parole while they were juveniles. The state Supreme Judicial Court ruled before the Horton case that life imprisonment was not “cruel or unusual” for juveniles because their sentences could be commuted for good behavior — a ruling that now seems to be a cruel joke in itself.

Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is having to deal with what might become a “reverse Willie Horton” case, involving the possible execution of an innocent man.

But even if the Texas case causes governors to be more cautious about applying the death penalty (not an issue in the Bay State), it probably won’t have any effect on the Willie Horton Doctrine in Massachusetts. Commutations (as opposed to pardons) do not apply to people later found innocent of crimes. It’s possible that a prisoner with a lifetime sentence, such as the ones profiled by Blanding, would be a model citizen after early release, but there’s no way to prove this without… releasing him.

Another complication: Research has shown the importance of close supervision of released inmates, regardless of whether they’re let out early. But it would cost the state money to set up new programs to supervise ex-inmates, and money is what the state doesn’t have.