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)
Wow, a Con that suddenly found Jesus while in jail. Never heard of that happening before.
Surely you don’t thing a fine baptist preacher like the huck would take money for a pardon, do you? I mean, he really isn’t clinton, is he?
Face it—Huck sucks. End of story.
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.