Aaron Ford Under Fire After Sponsoring Clemency for Man Who Killed Pregnant Woman

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford is facing growing national scrutiny after personally sponsoring the only clemency application he elevated this year—for a man convicted in the 2015 killing of a pregnant Las Vegas woman—then skipping the hearing and walking away from questions at a Las Vegas airport.

Ford, the Democratic nominee challenging Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, was listed as the sole sponsor of Norman Smith’s commutation request before the Nevada Board of Pardons Commissioners. Smith is serving a 10-to-39-year sentence in the death of Tineshea Adams, who was pregnant when she was killed in a parking-lot confrontation on Dec. 13, 2015.

He was initially charged with murder and later convicted of voluntary manslaughter and armed robbery. At the time of the shooting, Smith was already free on bail or house arrest and facing charges tied to armed-robbery attacks on Las Vegas Strip tourists.

By sponsoring the application, Ford moved Smith’s case onto the board’s official agenda. A Fox News Digital review of 2026 agendas found it was the only commutation request Ford sponsored all year. The Daily Mail reported the bid after Smith had been in prison only about seven years on the killing.  Ultimately, the board denied the request. Ford was absent. 

His campaign later said he missed the mid-September hearing because of an out-of-state family medical emergency. The same day, a conservative tracker confronted Ford at the Las Vegas airport after he deplaned from Arizona. Asked whether he was sponsoring Smith’s clemency bid, Ford replied, “Uhh, don’t know which one you’re talking about, but anyway—good to see you,” and walked off. Pressed again, he added only, “Good to see you. Take care.”

The airport backdrop fits a travel record the California Globe has tracked for more than a year, including a 2024 stretch when the attorney general spent about a third of the year out of state and a fall calendar built around ActBlue events and airports. 

On Sept. 24, Attorney General’s Office spokesman John Sadler told 8 News Now that putting a case on the agenda “does not mean that the board member supports clemency” and that, after reviewing the hearing and Smith’s file, Ford “would have voted no to any form of clemency or sentence modification.” 

Campaign spokeswoman Prerna Jagadeesh called sponsorship “standard operating procedure.”

Those statements followed an earlier claim that Ford acted after “a letter of support from the prosecutor” and a plea from Smith’s mother, a schoolteacher with cancer. 

8 News Now obtained Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Schwartzer’s letter to the Pardons Board and reported it does not endorse commutation; it recounts the crime and the victim’s family filling the gallery. Clark County prosecutors disputed the attorney general’s characterization. Sadler then said the office had meant a different letter written earlier to the parole board. That letter has not been released.

Better Nevada PAC spokesman John Burke said the changing account shows Ford “can’t be honest” about the bid and that he “owes Nevadans immediate answers.” The PAC has spent the cycle branding Ford as soft on crime. Throughout the campaign, Lombardo and allied groups are drawing from Ford’s record and role as a key backer of Assembly Bill 236, the 2019 rewrite that raised Nevada’s felony theft threshold and reduced penalties for certain property and drug offenses and Lombardo’s charge that Ford would not answer whether he supports defunding the police.

Ford’s campaign would rather talk about gas prices, data centers, and a “Lombardo-Trump economy.” 

Those lines are drawing less attention than the record this outlet has already documented: ethics complaints over luxury trips and official social-media use, Soros-family contributions and Ford’s role in AB 236, a campaign ad that reused 2018 law-enforcement footage, and now the only clemency application he chose to elevate in 2026.

Ford is facing a popular incumbent with bipartisan backing in a swing state. In his run for governor, he significantly trails in fundraising, while California governor Gavin Newsom’s endorsement and out-of-state fundraisers have already defined the race for many voters.

If sponsorship was only paperwork, Ford has still not said why this was the only file he picked, or sat for the interview local news outlets have requested.

The Globe will continue to monitor this story for updates.