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When state lawmakers passed a bill allowing warning shots instead of deadly force, they cited the case of a Polk County man, Orville Lee Wollard, who’s serving 20 years for shooting into a wall. Today, Wollard asked to be freed, but as Mike Vasilinda tells us, you might be surprised by the decision.

After a 2008 altercation with his daughters drug using boyfriend, Orville Lee Wollard fired a warning shot into the wall. Charged with a crime, Wollard turned down five years of probation, went to trial, and is instead serving a mandatory 20 years.

“The executive Clemency Board is now called to order” said Rick Scott as he gaveled the quarterly Clemency Board meeting open. Wollard’s case was the first on the agenda.

A year ago, warning shots became legal in Florida.  Wollard’s case was even sited in the footnotes as a reason to change the law. His family, including daughter Sarah, who’s then boyfriend was at the center of the case, came to the state Capitol to ask for his release.

“You have five seconds to leave and my boyfriend just looked at him and smirked and thought it all was a big joke. So my dad pointed the gun at the wall and shot into it which was a few feet away from my boyfriend” she recounted for the Governor.

The recommendation by clemency staff was to deny.  They found cocaine use in the 1990’s even though there were never criminal charges filed. Prosecutor Jerry Hill came to  say Wollard was incapable of making good decisions.

“it was unnecessary, and I suggest it’s not a murder charge by three or four inches.”

Almost immediately, Rick Scott announced “I deny commutation of sentence. When you read the record and there are things like domestic violence.”

The family looked on in disbelief. His wife Sandy was nearly speechless “And I’m just stunned and just crushed” she said afterward.

Under these published rules for someone seeking clemency, Wollard must serve at least half his sentence before he can apply again. That would be in 2019.”

On their way out of the building we asked Sarah Wollard “Sarah, if you had one thing to say to the Governor, what would it be?”

She didn’t answer.

Wollard was never charged with cocaine offenses, nor was he ever charged with domestic abuse. He did face child abuse charges for restraining his daughter.