This is something I’ve actually never blogged, because during a time when four families lost their loved ones, it didn’t seem like something worthy of heated debate here. That is, I never blogged the stories from Politico.com or any other site asking what the political implications would be for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee about paroling the man who killed four Lakewood police officers.
Now, Huckabee has sat down for an interview with Jon Stewart at The Daily Show about it. And the discussion is interesting.
Here it is:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Mike Huckabee | ||||
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December 9th, 2009 at 4:35 PM
There is only one thing that can be said for Mike:
http://huckabeewatch.com/2008/02/04/put-a-fork-in-him/
AFY!!thesheepdog!!!
December 9th, 2009 at 4:58 PM
Any thoughts of another presidential run for Mr. Huckabee might have had before this incident,he can forget.
Had he not personally commuted the sentence,the murderer would not have ever even been eligible for parole until 2015. All of the subsequent actions by either the murderer or other states are irrelevant.
Plenty of mistakes were made,but Huckabee’s decision made those possible.
Perhaps the most disappointing and disturbing aspect of the fall-out was listening to Mr. Huckabee’s near immediate press release after the murders. His number one concern at that point was not the victims families,it was an attempt to spread the blame. It truly was one of the most classless acts I’ve seen from a politician in a long time,if not ever.
I would have expected better from him.
December 9th, 2009 at 5:14 PM
“Had he not personally commuted the sentence,the murderer would not have ever even been eligible for parole until 2015. All of the subsequent actions by either the murderer or other states are irrelevant.”
I agree with the reasons Huckabee states for commuting the sentence, and I strongly disagree that doing so makes the murderer’s actions irrelevant. It was all the murderer’s doing.
December 9th, 2009 at 7:54 PM
When Huckabee commuted the very long sentence, the only crime he had been convicted of was robbery. The bigger crimes like child rape were committed here, and Washington, not Arkansas, is the state to blame for his release.
Gregoire’s unconstitutional ban on Arkansas’ parolees is an attempt to deflect blame to Arkansas, when that blame belongs here.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:40 PM
“Clemmons was among 1,033 people who were pardoned or had their sentences reduced during Huckabee’s 10 1/2 years as governor. Bill Clinton, Frank White and Jim Guy Tucker granted 507 clemencies in the 17 1/2 years they served. Beebe, Huckabee’s Democratic successor, has issued 273 commutations and pardons since taking office in January 2007 – all but one of them were pardons after the completion of the inmates’ prison terms.”
Fortunately,it’s a mute point.
There’s enough people on both the right and the left that feel this disqualifies him,that in effect it does.
Huckabee was opening the door to almost anyone who would claim that they found the Lord.
Not sure how anyone could rationalize Huckabee’s decision. Point of fact is that without clemency, this monster would still be behind bars,and the officers would be alive.
That truly does make any subsequent action irrelevant. Doesn’t seem rational to argue otherwise.
December 9th, 2009 at 9:59 PM
or it could be a “moot point”.
December 9th, 2009 at 10:10 PM
Upon further consideration, even though I initially felt like I would’ve commuted the sentence as well for being ridiculously long, it’s the job of the judicial branch of government to determine such things, and a single individual shouldn’t be able to overrule the outcome of the justice system based on their subjective, emotional sympathies.
Objective representative government is no place for emotions.
December 10th, 2009 at 8:43 AM
Pardons and commutations are a part of our system and have been since the start. They recognize that even the jury system can get it wrong sometimes–in fact more often than we would wish to assume. Also most jury decisions are a matter of subjectivity. We like to dress it up by calling for indisputable evidence, but evidence is often disputable and beyond a reasonable doubt is seldom attainable except in the cases of confessions. In the end our emotional subjectivity is a big component of the system and has been recognized as such by the need for the additional protections afforded by pardon and commutation.
December 10th, 2009 at 11:17 AM
If politics were based solely on objectivity, we wouldn’t need representative government. We have representative government to allow all of our subjective realities to have a voice—and politics is all about emotion.
December 10th, 2009 at 1:34 PM
Jurgen, even a confession is not reasonable doubt. The Innocence Projects lists false confessions as one of the number one reasons for innocent people going to jail.
December 10th, 2009 at 2:39 PM
Point taken, but I think you mean even a confession does not satisfy the condition of beyond a reasonable doubt. Right? The Innocence project, to which I have donated, points out how subjective our justice system is. I am always amazed that people are not more upset at some of the travesties that have and still occur.