A man sentenced to life without parole more than two decades ago for murdering a girl in Astoria is on Gov. Kate Brown’s list of offenders who committed crimes as juveniles and can seek clemency.

Patrick Lee Harned — who in 1999, at age 16, kidnapped, sexually abused and strangled his neighbor, 7-year-old Ashley Ann Carlson — has petitioned for early release, the Oregon Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision confirmed.

Harned, Carlson’s babysitter, hid the girl’s body, then participated in law enforcement’s search for her. He was convicted of aggravated murder in 2000.

The sentence was later upheld on appeal, Clatsop County District Attorney Ron Brown said, “because of how heinous the crime was.”

Harned, who has changed his name to Jessie Davin Payne-Rana, is among the inmates whose sentences are under reassessment in light of Oregon’s changing policies and attitudes toward criminal justice. The state has reformed how the judicial system prosecutes and punishes young offenders.

A 2019 law allows youths who committed Measure 11 offenses — the most severe crimes, such as murder and rape, that demand mandatory minimum sentences — to have their age and the circumstances of their crimes considered by judges before sentencing.

A spokesperson for Gov. Brown told The Oregonian that the governor’s plan is meant for some offenders who were imprisoned as teenagers before the law was passed and therefore could not benefit from it.

The governor’s decision to commute sentences for people whose crimes were serious enough to warrant decades or life in prison has provoked fierce backlash from some prosecutors and from victims’ families who feel the original sentences brought a sense of justice, if not closure.

Carlson’s mother, Tessa Carlson, is “suffering big time” by the idea that her daughter’s killer could be let out, the district attorney said. The news is tearing open old wounds for her, he said.

“We strongly hope that they will not just let (Harned) out with the floodgates,” Brown said.

Harned’s hearing has not been scheduled, but he will likely have one later this year, according to the parole board. He is housed at Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario.

Carlson’s mother is incarcerated in Idaho on drug charges. In an interview with KOIN 6 News that aired this month, Tessa Carlson said she was frustrated. “It’s all really hard right now. It’s all bringing up everything all over again,” she said. “He helped me look for her; we found her on the 15th, and we buried her on the 20th. So February’s a really, really hard month.”

“The irony isn’t lost on anybody that she is doing time in the pen in Idaho for a small amount of meth, by all accounts, and (Harned) is being considered for parole after murdering her daughter,” Ron Brown said. “That is just … Something wrong with that picture.”