Posted on 12/07/2007 5:31:53 AM PST by SUSSA
Gov. Huckabee probably never read the confession of a demented killer named Glen Green before he made the monster eligible for parole.
Green's confession is so depraved, its sadistic details so scary that no sane, responsible adult would consider him for parole.
If the governor didn't read the confession, he is guilty of dereliction of duty.
But if he read the confession and still considers Green deserving of parole, he's certainly unfit to hold office. Who would free a madman who beat an 18-year-old woman with Chinese martial-arts sticks, raped her as she barely clung to life, ran over her with his car, then dumped her in the bayou, her hand reaching up, as if begging for mercy?
We're publishing the gruesome picture of Green's victim on the front page because we believe her hand is reaching up to demand justice.
In usual fashion, Huckabee's office didn't even contact the victim's family about the clemency.
Although he's required to by the Constitution, the governor, as is his custom, won't say why he granted clemency to this crazed killer (over the unanimous objections of the Post-Prison Transfer Board).
Huckabee apparently listened to Green's minister (and a friend of the governor), who thinks the murder was an accident and Green was forced to confess.
The Jacksonville police, who arrested Green in 1974 after a witness linked him to the crime, think the minister and Huckabee are both delusional, which is the mildest epitaph we can print.
This old police reporter knows a genuine confession when he sees one, and Green's depravity has the ring of truth.
Green, a 22-year-old sergeant, kidnapped Helen Lynette Spencer on Little Rock Air Force Base, where he beat and kicked her as he tried to rape her in a secluded area. She broke loose and ran toward the barracks' parking lot, where he caught up with her and beat her with a pair of nunchucks.
He then stuffed her into the trunk of his car and left her there while he cleaned up. Several hours later, he drove down Graham Road, past Loop Road and stopped near a bridge in Lonoke County. Green told investigators he put her body in the front seat and raped her because her body was still warm.
He dragged Spencer out of his vehicle and put her in front of the car and ran over her several times, going back and forth. He then collected himself long enough to dump her body in Twin Prairie Bayou.
This is what the Rev. Johnny Jackson, interim pastor at Bethel Baptist Church in Jacksonville, calls an accident, and apparently Huckabee believes him.
"There is no doubt in my mind that he could kill again," warns Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley.
The crime started out in his jurisdiction and ended in Lonoke County, where Prosecutor Lona McCastlain has also spoken out against the clemency.
"Life means life," she said, referring to Green's sentence after he plead guilty to Spencer's kidnapping, rape and murder.
As he grants clemency to scores of violent criminals, Huckabee's motives are the subject of speculation: Why, people are asking, is he doing it? After studying the record for several weeks, all one can say is that his actions perhaps reflect a combination of arrogance and avarice and ignorance.
While his fellow governors keep electing him to top positions in their little club, he has alienated Arkansans of both parties. They're shocked at not only the amazing number of clemencies but also at the way he ignores the suffering of the victims' families, who are always the last to know when their loved one's killer is up for parole.
Bilenda Harris-Ritter, an attorney who now lives in California, is one of those people who worry all the time that Huckabee might free the man who killed their relatives. Harris-Ritter's parents were murdered in north Arkansas, and she has had to deal with heartless state bureaucrats as she fights to keep the killer locked up.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently named Harris-Ritter chairman of the Public Employees Board, which oversees collective-bargaining agreements among 7,000 employers and 2 million employees.
She is upset that our governor has not been more forthright about his clemencies.
"Huckabee is required by law to make certain notifications. When he does not, the pardon should be voidable," she told us.
She continued, "The people of the good state of Arkansas (and I really mean that) need to think seriously about impeachment."
When told that many people consider Huckabee our worst governor in recent memory, Harris-Ritter replied, "No argument from me, and I am a Republican!"
Huckabee isn’t Ron Paul, that’s for sure...but he’s no conservative either.
A liberal Bible-thumper who supports gun rights does not equal a conservative.
Huckabee is a Christian populist with the rub being his Christian view of compassion leads him to do things that aren’t popular at all — like paroling killers & rapists who claim they have been saved. He is taking advice from fellow Baptists and not researching it properly. The ability to forgive and the light of hope even in the darkest soul is a great quality for a preacher. But not for a President.
Well said. You articulated my point better than I could.
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