Huckabee's Plethora of Pardons

In July, when Little Rock, Ark., prosecutor Larry Jegley heard that Wade Stewart had been arrested for the robbery of a prostitute, with a .38 revolver tucked into his pants, Jegley says he just shrugged his shoulders, shook his head and said, "What the heck?"

Stewart had been serving a life sentence after fatally shooting, in 1973, 25-year-old Nicholas Papadopolis.

But on Dec. 18, 2004, Gov. Mike Huckabee granted Stewart clemency, making him eligible for parole, which he was granted. He was the 12th convicted murderer whom Huckabee had helped free from prison. And when Stewart was freed, Jegley had a feeling he'd be hearing from him sooner or later.

"I have been waiting for a lot of these guys that he cut loose to turn up on the police blotter again and again," said Jegley, the prosecuting attorney for Pulaski County, which includes Little Rock. "I know some of the people that Huckabee let loose have reoffended. Some of them we've caught and some of them we haven't caught."

Jegley is a Democrat, but the concerns Arkansas prosecutors had about Huckabee were hardly partisan. Lonoke County Prosecuting Attorney Lona McCastlain, a Republican, says she likes Huckabee personally and thought he accomplished "some great things, but I disagreed with his policy on this particular issue. I think later governors will probably learn from the mistakes that were made during the Huckabee administration."

McCastlain is referring to the fact that as governor from 1996 through 2007, Huckabee helped free through commutations and pardons more prisoners than had been freed by the previous three governors — Bill Clinton, Frank White and Jim Guy Tucker — combined in an 18-year period.

In fact, an Arkansas Leader study indicated that Huckabee helped free more prisoners from 1996 through 2004 than were freed in the six neighboring states — Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas — combined.

None of the prosecutors were ever told why Huckabee felt compelled to have a hand in freeing so many prisoners, though all of them speculate that his deeply religious nature led to a strong belief in repentance and forgiveness. In some cases, prosecutors say, evangelical leaders attested that a prisoner had found Jesus and that seemed to influence the governor's thoughts.

Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart (no relation to Wade) told ABC News in a statement that "some Governors are content to simply deny the vast majority of clemency applications without bothering to consider their merit. Gov. Huckabee, however, believed that respect for the legal process required that he give them the consideration for which they were entitled. Even though he denied over 80 percent of the applications, his clemency rate was still higher than governors who do not bother to review each application."

Stewart went on to explain that the governor's high number of pardons and clemencies was because of increased security post-Sept. 11.

"Before the mainstream use of background checks, most people could have some youthful arrest, change their lives and become good, tax-paying citizens without that earlier arrest coming back to haunt them," she said. That changed and "Gov. Huckabee found during his time in office that each year the number of people needing clemency to clear their record increased. Denying their request prevented them from continuing to earn a good living and pay taxes. The majority of the clemency requests he granted were for this reason."

But prosecutors in Arkansas say their real concern was with the pardons and commutations Huckabee granted to violent offenders, especially the approximately one dozen murderers. An Arkansas Democrat-Gazette review in 2004 concluded that state records indicate "at least 9 percent of the prisoners who benefited from Huckabee's clemencies ended up in prison again."

In recent days media attention has focused on the case of Wayne DuMond, a rapist whom the Arkansas Parole Board paroled after Huckabee advocated on his behalf. DuMond went on to rape and kill at least one other woman.

Paroles, in reality, are decisions made entirely by the parole board, and Huckabee has said the decision was not his to make, which is factually correct, though some members of the board have reportedly suggested Huckabee influenced their decision greatly.

The governor of Arkansas makes the ultimate decision, however, when it comes to clemency — shortening the time a prisoner serves — and pardons. When he commuted a prisoner's sentence from life without chance of parole to something less, he made them eligible to be freed by the parole board. And it was with these powers that Huckabee was rather, well, forgiving.

This particularly seemed to be the case with prisoners who worked in the governor's mansion, such as Willie Way Jr.

Way had pleaded guilty to both the July 1973 first-degree murder of James Carter, who owned a grocery store, and the involuntary manslaughter death of Reginald Mack, 14, shot and killed in Way's home. Huckabee commuted Way's sentence in May 2001, making him eligible for parole, and after he was freed he worked at the governor's mansion.

In one instance, a Huckabee commutation was overturned by a lawsuit that found a technical error in the clemency process. In 2004, Huckabee attempted to grant clemency to Don Jeffers, who in 1980 pleaded guilty to bludgeoning to death William Hash. After Saline County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Herzfeld asked the governor to explain why he would commute Jeffers' life sentence, Huckabee's aide Cory Cox wrote a letter to Herzfeld saying "the governor read your letter and laughed out loud."

It was around that time that Huckabee, under fire for his clemency policy, announced that from then on there would be three reasons for his granting clemency: "remarkable signs of rehabilitation," "substantial and compelling evidence" showing "an injustice committed at trial" and "a terminal or substantially debilitating medical condition." But the governor also reserved the right to bestow forgiveness for "other reasons."

After this new policy, Huckabee commuted the sentence of Stewart, despite what Jegley says were the prisoner's myriad disciplinary marks while in prison, and his refusal to accept any responsibility in Papadopolis' death, though he acknowledged his intent to rob him. Stewart had claimed Papadopolis, a drug dealer, had poisoned himself, though the cause of his death was ruled gunshot wounds. It was unclear how Stewart qualified for clemency under Huckabee's new policy.

"I used to be able to tell the families of victims, in all good faith and candor, that it was a rare event when a governor commuted a sentence and let a murderer back out, or a rapist back out or a child molester back out. But I can't do that anymore," Jegley said.

Jegley says he would get "calls from victim's families and jurors. They were just furious. They felt he had totally disrespected the system."

McCastlain shares many of those sentiments, albeit more politely, but she also had more success in her dealings with Huckabee. In 2004 McCastlain heard that Huckabee was considering commuting the sentence of former Air Force Sgt. Glen Green, who in 1974 confessed to kidnapping Helen Lynette Spencer at the Little Rock Air Force base, beating her with nunchucks, raping her in a secluded area, running over her with his car, stuffing her body into his trunk and dumping her body in a bayou. A witness tied him with the horrific crime and Green confessed.

The Rev. Johnny Jackson, a pastor at Bethel Baptist Church in Jacksonville, began advocating for Green's release, and when McCastlain heard she began to worry, given Huckabee's forgiving nature. "I was concerned," she said. "I could foresee that commutation might happen because it had happened before."

She prepared documentation to keep the brutal killer in prison. "The governor came from a religious background, so I tried to appeal to him in the way that I thought he looked at clemency," she said. She attacked the sincerity of Green's repentance.

"As a prosecutor," she said, Huckabee's plethora of pardons and commutations "was a concern for me. I respect a jury and a jury's findings and what they say is what I believe the sentence should be."

Why parole a monster like Green (2004)
Garrick Feldman
The Arkansas Leader
07-21-04

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!"

Arkansas clemencies outpace other states (August 2004)
Garrick Feldman
The Arkansas Leader
08-11-04
(Excerpted, click here to read the rest)

If you're wondering how Gov. Huckabee's hundreds of clemencies compare with neighboring states, get ready for a shocker.

Huckabee leads the pack.

He has issued more commutations and pardons than all of the six neighboring states combined.

Governors seldom reduce sentences in other states – and almost never for murderers serving life without parole or for rapists or for habitual drunk drivers, while in Arkansas it's a regular habit with Huckabee.

Other governors use their clemency power only rarely, while Huckabee has made it routine. As we've told you before, he has issued more than 700 pardons and commutations during his eight years in office – more than 137 this year alone – and more than his three predecessors combined.

Here are the figures for neighboring states since 1996, when Huckabee took office (and keep in mind the population of these states is nearly 20 times ours):

-Louisiana – 213.
-Mississippi – 24.
-Missouri – 79.
-Oklahoma – 178.
-Tennessee – 32.
-Texas – 98 (in-cludes 36 inmates released because they were convicted on drug charges with planted evidence).

Total: 624 vs. Huckabee's 703.

Governors in neighboring states almost never grant killers clemency, while Huckabee has commuted the sentences of a dozen murderers.

(snip)

Governors in the states we studied grant clemencies only on special occasions, such as when they leave office. Last January, after Mississippi Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, a Democrat, lost his re-election bid, he issued 16 clemencies, and there was a huge outcry. That's how many Huckabee averages per month.

By contrast, Haley Barbour, Mississippi's new Republican governor, has issued no clemencies all year, nor has Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, Louisiana's new governor, a Democrat.

In Tennessee, Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, has issued no clemencies since he took office in January 2003.

(snip)

The REAL Mike Huckabee

I have absolutely nothing against Mormons or the Mormon religion. I lived in Western Colorado for many years and have many Mormon friends. They are very family oriented with great moral character and values. The fact that Romney is a Mormon is not even a consideration for me or for many of the people here on FreeRepublic. Romney’s stands on abortion are contradictory to Christian values. I know, he said he was wrong, but as little as a few years ago, he pronounced that he would protect a woman’s right to choose. I’m glad he has changed his mind...however, he has changed his mind on way too many issues that are important in this election. What happens if he is elected and changes his mind again? Judicial nominations will be exceedingly important over the next 8 years with the possibility of at least 2 new Justices. Conservatives are finally making progress with the direction of the Supreme Court and we must elect a true, died in the wool, consistent Conservative to continue with this progress.

Socialized medicine will not work in this country...it will destroy this country. If you can’t call it socialized medicine, it is very close! You simply cannot mandate the American people to do what you want them to do. Give them options, get the Federal Government out of the way and let the market bring the prices down.

I am very pleased to hear that you are seriously considering FRED, as he is grounded in his Conservative principles and desire for smaller government. FRED’s federalist foundation is exactly what AMERICA needs in a leader. FRED is without a doubt in my opinion, the finest candidate Conservatives have had in a very long time! I am praying that the rest of the country will ignore the MSM’s choices and look seriously at this very fine man.

FRED THOMPSON (true Conservative Federalist) - NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERIENCE (I’ll do whatever it takes to stop the bastards, include water-boarding) - 2ND AMENDMENT ADVOCATE (arm everyone and the criminals will back off) - SECURE THE BORDERS (starve the bastards out and they will go home) - LAW AND ORDER (enforcement first and foremost) - SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM (the program can’t sustain itself) - DEFEAT THE DEMOCRAT (any fool they put up) – TAX SIMPLIFICATION (choice for the tax payer) - PING!

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