Outgoing North Carolina governor grants 2 pardons, 6 commutations

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has commuted what have been lengthy sentences served by six criminal offenders in state prisons and granted pardons to two others. Five of the commutations went to people who were convicted of murder. Those pardons of innocence the outgoing governor also signed on Wednesday gives the persons wrongly imprisoned for erroneous felony convictions the ability to seek monetary compensation. One such pardon went to a man ultimately acquitted in the deaths of an elderly couple. The other pardon went to a man exonerated in a convenience store robbery.