SPOKANE -- The Washington State Clemency and Pardons Board unanimously rejected convicted cop killer Lonnie Link’s clemency request following a five-hour meeting Wednesday.

Link was hoping Governor Christine Gregoire would commute his sentence for the 1983 shooting of Spokane Police Detective Brian Orchard. The clemency board, after hearing from a number of witnesses including Brian Orchard’s daughter and brother, rejected Link’s appeal.

Orchard was working undercover and was on a stakeout planning to arrest two men who were holding more than $100,000 in stolen property including some guns that had been taken in a burglary in Wenatchee. As he approached the Cadillac in which Link and another man were sitting Link opened fire on Orchard, hitting him in the head and killing him.

Within a year Link was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for Orchard’s death. Brian Orchard was the last Spokane policeman to have been shot and killed in the line of duty.

Link hitched his chances for freedom on a claim that when he shot Orchard he really thought he was firing at another man, Alvin Hegge, the former president of the Ghost Riders Motorcycle Club.

He claimed that the shooting was one of mistaken identity and that he would’ve told the jury at his trial however Hegge warned him that if he mentioned the Ghost Riders’ involvement in the Wenatchee burglary that Hegge would have Link killed in prison.

Among Link’s supporters was former Spokane County prosecutor Don Brockett, who conceded that because of the new information Link didn’t get a fair trial and should be released from prison with the 26 years he’s already served.

In a strange twist of fate, Link was supposed to have his clemency hearing last December 10th but that hearing was postponed after four Lakewood police officers were gunned down in a coffee shop just four days before the planned hearing.

The man responsible for killing those four officers was Maurice Clemmons who had been released from prison years ahead of schedule after he was pardoned by Arkansas’ governor at the time, Mike Huckabee.

RELATED VIDEO:
Clemency hearing postponed for convicted cop killer
Convicted murderer wants clemency for Brian Orchard's shooting