A spokeswoman for the governor said that hundreds of clemency applications had been reviewed this year.

We would still depend on our presidents, who should vow to route all clemency applications to the Justice Department's pardon attorney for appropriate review.

But they asserted that their client would remain free to pursue an appeal during the three months that the clemency application would take to be processed.

Without such entree, it was nearly impossible to argue the merits of clemency applications, many lawyers said.

The only forum in which Mr. Herrera could now make his case, the brief said, was in a clemency application to the governor of Texas.

Earlier in the week, the state Board of Pardons and Parole had rejected his clemency application.

Successful clemency applications are thought to be even rarer.

But he told a radio interviewer in November that he would consider Mr. Peltier's request along with other clemency applications.

Their clemency applications also provided details they did not mention.

"I know it was terrible to put him in the attic," she wrote in her clemency application.