KENNESAW, Ga. — A Georgia judge on Monday ordered a temporary pause to a December execution that was already put on hold, saying questions about the state’s clemency process must be addressed before Stacey Humphreys ‘ death sentence could be carried out.

Humphreys, 52, was facing scheduled execution Dec. 17 but the procedure was paused just days before he was to have received a lethal injection.

He was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in the 2003 shooting deaths of Cyndi Williams, 33, and Lori Brown, 21, at the real estate office where they worked in Cobb County, northwest of Atlanta.

At issue: Humphreys’ lawyers contend that two members of Georgia’s parole board have conflicts of interest which would taint their participation in a clemency hearing.

Humphreys’ lawyers earlier this month filed a petition asking a judge to order the two members of the parole board to recuse themselves from considering his clemency petition.

The lawyers said one of those board members, Kimberly McCoy, was previously a victim advocate with the Cobb County district attorney’s office at the time of Humphreys’ trial and was assigned to work with victims in the case.

Another board member, Wayne Bennett, was the sheriff in Glynn County, where the trial was moved because of pretrial publicity. Humphreys’ lawyers say Bennett oversaw security for the jurors and Humphreys himself during the case.

In an order filed Monday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney wrote that “pressing ‘pause’ on the execution machinery until we answer the non-frivolous question raised by Petitioner concerning the proper composition of the Board for his clemency hearing is the correct course of action.”

He ordered lawyers for both sides to file additional legal briefs on the issue by Jan. 19.

Additionally, the judge wrote in his order that Humphreys deserves to have the conflict of interest question researched and argued thoroughly so that a parole board free of conflicts of interest can decide his case at a clemency hearing.

WATERBURY, Conn. — A judge on Monday disbarred Hunter Biden in Connecticut for violating the state’s attorney conduct rules, a decision that comes after complaints were made about the federal gun and tax charges Biden was convicted of before being pardoned last year by his father, former President Joe Biden.

In an agreement with the state office that disciplines lawyers, Hunter Biden consented to being disbarred and admitted to attorney misconduct, but he did not admit to any criminal wrongdoing. He was disbarred in Washington, D.C., in May.

Hunter Biden did not speak as he and his lawyer, Ross Garber, appeared via video at a virtual court hearing before Judge Trial Referee Patrick L. Carroll III in Waterbury.

Hunter Biden was convicted last year in Delaware federal court of three felonies for purchasing a gun in 2018 when, prosecutors said, he lied on a federal form by claiming he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.

He had been set to stand trial in September 2024 in a California case in which prosecutors accused him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes. He agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor and felony charges hours after jury selection was set to begin.

The Connecticut judge found that Hunter Biden violated several ethical rules for lawyers, including engaging in conduct “involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.” In a court document, Hunter Biden admitted to some but not all of the misconduct allegations. The judge also cited the Washington disbarment.

Paul Dorsey, one of the two people who filed the complaints about the former president’s son, told the judge during Monday’s hearing that he objected to the agreement because Hunter Biden did not admit to committing crimes. But Leanne Larson, an attorney with the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, cited the pardon.

Hunter Biden was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1997, a year after graduating from Yale Law School.

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who created the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and served prison time after failing to stop criminals from using the platform to move money connected to child sex abuse, drug trafficking and terrorism.

Zhao had asked Trump for a pardon previously.

He has deep ties to World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that the Republican president and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. launched in September.

Trump’s most recent financial disclosure report reveals he made more than $57 million last year from World Liberty Financial, which has launched USD1, a stablecoin pegged at a 1-to-1 ratio to the U.S. dollar.

World Liberty Financial also recently announced that an investment fund in the United Arab Emirates would be using $2 billion worth of USD1 to purchase a stake in Binance. Zhao also has publicly said that he had asked Trump for a pardon that could nullify his conviction.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Thursday that the Biden administration prosecuted Zhao out of a “desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry.” She said there were “no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims,” though Zhao had pleaded guilty in November to one count of failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering program.

“I failed here,” Zhao told the court last year. “I deeply regret my failure, and I am sorry.”

ASHLAND, Ky. — Pounding away on a prison typewriter, Chad Scott seemed worlds apart from President Donald Trump.

But when the disgraced narcotics agent wrote the White House seeking clemency for his corruption conviction, Scott sought to draw Trump’s attention to what they have in common.

Both men had survived a bullet wound to the ear, Scott wrote, and had been convicted of falsifying records. They were also each a victim of “political persecution,” the type of catchphrase the former agent hoped would resonate with a man who has long complained of witch hunts.

By helping him, Scott argued, Trump would be showing he had “the back of law enforcement.”

“Chad Scott is a hero in this country’s war on drugs,” his attorney wrote in a clemency petition reviewed by The Associated Press, adding it would be a “gross waste of taxpayer money” to house and feed the former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent for six more years.

Scott’s application is hardly unique, according to prisoners, defense attorneys and officials. The White House and the Justice Department have received a wave of such requests — all carefully crafted to capture the attention and fancy of Trump or those who know his inclinations.

The flurry, legal experts said, has been sparked by Trump’s frequent and eyebrow-raising grants of clemency since retaking office in January. The Republican president has pardoned and commuted the sentences of more than 1,600 people, including many political allies, former GOP officeholders and hundreds charged or convicted in the 2021 Capitol riot. He even pardoned a pair of reality TV stars who were serving time for bank fraud and tax evasion.

In doing so, Trump has largely cast aside a process that historically has been overseen by nonpolitical personnel at the Justice Department who spent their days poring over clemency applications — thick packets filled with character references attesting to applicants’ atonement and good deeds. Only those meeting strict criteria were then passed along to the White House.

Those procedures appear to have been replaced by the caprice of a president known for his transactional approach to governance, his loyalty to supporters and his disdain for perceived enemies.

It’s created “a free-for-all” for those seeking clemency, said Liz Oyer, the Justice Department’s former pardon attorney, who was fired in March. “The traditional process and practices,” she told the AP, “all seem to have fallen by the wayside.”

That has left an opening for prisoners like Eric Sanchez Chaparro, who is seeking a commutation for a drug and weapons conviction that carries a 19-year prison sentence. The optimism, he said, has never been higher for those behind bars.

“In many ways I feel like he has the same point of view that we’ve got,” Chaparro said in a telephone interview, noting that both he and the president were convicted of felonies. Trump was convicted last year on New York state charges of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to a porn star but was sentenced to no punishment.

“Even though people try to put him down,” Chaparro added, “he kept on pushing for his goal.”

The Trump administration did not disclose how many people have reached out to Trump or White House officials to seek clemency, though some have boasted of doing so in colorful ways. Last week, Joe Exotic, the former zookeeper known as the “Tiger King,” posted a song he said he wrote for Trump on social media, claiming he was “paying the time for a crime I didn’t do.” He’s serving a 21-year sentence for the failed murder-for-hire of an animal-welfare activist.

Since Trump retook office five months ago, his Justice Department has received more than 9,300 petitions seeking commutations of sentences or pardons. At that pace, the tally would blow past the approximately 15,000 petitions filed during the four years of President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration. The Justice Department received about 12,000 petitions in Trump’s first term.

Clemency is perhaps the most unchecked power enjoyed by a president, as actions cannot be undone by courts or other officials. Presidents can commute sentences — reducing or eliminating them — or bestow a pardon that wipes away convictions or criminal charges.

Trump is hardly the first president to generate controversy over how he has handled such powers. Biden prompted bipartisan outrage in December when he pardoned his son Hunter, sparing him a possible prison sentence for felony gun and tax convictions. And Biden was sharply criticized — mainly by Republicans — for issuing preemptive pardons to protect lawmakers, former officials and his family members from what he described as a potentially vindictive Trump administration.

Even so, legal scholars say, Trump’s approach to clemency has veered into unprecedented territory.

The president, for example, tapped a vociferous political supporter, Ed Martin Jr., to be the Justice Department’s pardon attorney. Martin is a former defense lawyer who represented Jan. 6 rioters and promoted false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen by Democrats. Trump gave Martin the post after pulling his nomination to be the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in the face of bipartisan concerns over his divisive politics. Martin did not respond to requests for comment.

Much of Trump’s mercy has gone to political allies, campaign donors and fraudsters who claimed they were victims of a “weaponized” Justice Department. The pardons that have drawn the most attention include one issued to a tax cheat whose mother raised millions of dollars for Republican causes.

There was the pardon of a prolific straw donor for foreign contributions who gave $900,000 to Trump’s first inaugural committee. Trump voided the conviction of Scott Jenkins, a Virginia sheriff and vocal Trump supporter, sentenced to 10 years for deputizing several businessmen in exchange for cash payments.

“What these pardons signal — together with everything else — is that all bets are now off,” said Frank Bowman, a legal historian and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law who is writing a book on pardons. “It’s a grotesque misuse of constitutional authority of a kind that has never been seen in American history.”

Administration officials say Trump decides on clemency requests after they’re vetted by the White House Counsel’s Office, the White House pardon czar and the Justice Department. Reviewers have been focusing on nonviolent, rehabilitated criminals with compelling references, the officials said. The White House is also considering petitions from those serving unjustified sentences and what the administration deems “over-prosecution.”

“President Trump doesn’t need lectures from Democrats about his use of pardons, especially from those who supported a president who pardoned his corrupt son, shielded Dr. Fauci from accountability for the millions who suffered under his failed COVID leadership and backed the infamous ‘kids-for-cash’ judge who profited from incarcerating children,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in an email. “President Trump is using his pardon and commutation powers to right many wrongs, acting reasonably and responsibly within his constitutional authority.”

All the while, Trump’s approach has spread hope among lesser-connected prisoners who long ago exhausted their appeals, a half dozen federal prisoners told the AP in interviews.

A remedy long likened to winning the lottery seems more attainable in an administration that has dispensed with many of the traditional criteria considered in clemency, including remorse, the severity of the crime and the amount of time a prisoner has already served.

Jonathan E. Woods, an early Trump supporter and former Arkansas state senator, is serving an 18-year sentence for a bribery conviction.

The former legislator believes he has a legitimate shot at winning a commutation because, he wrote to the AP, “President Trump is viewed as someone as having a big heart, nonjudgmental and someone who has been put through hell by a very imperfect legal system.”

“Inmates view him as someone who will listen to them in hopes of going home early to their loved ones,” Woods added.

Woods, who is serving time in a prison in Texas, has also raised allegations he hopes will resonate with the president: evidence of misconduct by an FBI agent who investigated the former state senator. That agent pleaded guilty to “corruptly destroying” his government hard drive in Woods’ case.

Trump spent years blasting the FBI, particularly for how it investigated him over allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign and its role in the Justice Department’s ill-fated prosecutions of Trump in the Capitol riot and his retention of classified documents at his Florida resort.

Less political appeals have also been fruitful — thanks to the president’s advisers.

Those working to land pardons for Eddie and Joe Sotelo didn’t give up after Biden rejected their application. Instead, advocates turned to help from Alice Marie Johnson, whom Trump recently tapped as his pardon czar after commuting her sentence for federal drug and money laundering charges in 2018.

It was Johnson who intervened on behalf of the brothers, who had been serving life prison terms for a drug-trafficking conspiracy, said Brittany Barnett, founder of the Buried Alive Project, a nonprofit advocacy group that took up the Sotelos’ case. The brothers were freed late last month.

Johnson “knows firsthand the weight of a life sentence,” Barnett said. “These men were serving the same sentence as the Unabomber — on drug charges.”

Trump’s open-mindedness has sent “shock waves of hope through the prison walls for the thousands of people still serving extreme sentences,” Barnett said.

No commutation seems out of the question in prisons like FCI Ashland, the Kentucky lockup where Scott, the former DEA agent, has been held nearly four years.

Scott, 57, was exercising in March with Brian Kelsey, when the former Tennessee state senator received word he had been pardoned just two weeks into a 21-month sentence for campaign finance fraud. Kelsey called his release a “victory for every American who believes in one impartial justice system for all.”

Last month, the president pardoned another former Ashland prisoner, P.G. Sittenfeld, a former Cincinnati city councilman who not only won office as a Democrat but sharply criticized Trump. It is unclear why Trump pardoned Sittenfeld, who also seemed surprised by the grant of clemency. “I was as stunned as I suspect you were,” he wrote supporters this month, according to the Cincinnati Business Courier.

In his own application for a commutation, Scott sought to draw Trump’s attention not only to his ear wound — sustained in a shooting that predated his law enforcement career — but also the prosecutor who handled his case. That prosecutor went on to work for special counsel Jack Smith, whose team twice indicted Trump. The charges were dropped after Trump won the November election.

“Though I do not claim to be a saint, I DID NOT commit the crimes for which I have been convicted,” Scott wrote to the president, even using all caps like Trump does on social media.

Scott had been among the most prolific narcotics agents in the country during his 17-year career at the DEA and won several awards for his work.

His downfall began in 2016, when two members of his New Orleans-based task force were arrested for stealing and using drugs, prompting a yearslong FBI inquiry. A federal jury convicted Scott in 2019 of orchestrating false testimony against a trafficker. He also was found guilty of falsifying DEA paperwork to acquire a pickup truck and, following a separate trial, stealing money and property from suspects.

Scheduled for release in 2031, he has exhausted every possible appeal. Clemency from Trump, Scott told the AP, is his “last resort.”

By all accounts, Scott has been a model prisoner and has been awarded sought-after privileges. He spends his days as FCI Ashland’s “town driver,” chauffeuring newly released prisoners to bus stops, halfway houses, hospitals and doctors’ offices in nearby cities.

And he has participated in a program called Pawsibilities Unleashed, in which he raises and trains service and therapy dogs behind bars.

He named one of his most recent canines, a Labradane, Trump.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.