In one of his last official acts, Gov. John Baldacci used the power of his office to do justice.

Touch Rin Svay received a pardon for his 2001 vehicular manslaughter conviction, which resulted from a drunken driving crash that killed Svay’s sister.

Baldacci did not act because Svay’s crime was not serious — it was, and two children are growing up without a mother as a result of it.

And Baldacci did not act because Svay didn’t deserve to be punished — he did and he has been. He completed a six-year prison sentence and a period of probation.

But Svay did not deserve one consequence of his act, which was his possible deportation to Cambodia, a country in which he had never set foot and from which his parents fled to escape persecution.

Because Svay was born in a Thai refugee camp, he is a Cambodian national, and growing up in Portland, graduating from high school and joining the Marine Corps did not change that.

Baldacci recognized the injustice that would have resulted from a deportation and issued a pardon that will allow him to stay here securely.

The case should make people ponder what could have happened if the governor had not taken this extraordinary step. A much simpler intervention, maybe when Svay was still in high school or in the military, would have been to steer him toward citizenship before he made his serious errors.

Svay will stay here now and continue to help raise his sister’s children. That’s where he belongs, and that’s why the pardon was justified.