Posted on 12/02/2009 4:44:10 AM PST by blf1776
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Former Arkansas Governor and Presidental Candidate Mike Huckabee spoke at the Annual Tippecanoe County Right to Life banquet in West Lafayette.
Huckabee has been under scrutiny after a man shot and killed four cops in a coffee shop in Seattle. Maurice Clemmons, the suspect, was facing a lifetime in prison in Arkansas when Huckabee was governor. Huckabee shortened Clemmons' sentence.
"Here was a kid at age 16 had committed a burgarly and a robbery and got a 108 year sentence," Huckabee said Tuesday night at the Right to Life annual banquet on Purdue's campus. "The judge thought it was unfair. The parole board did and recommended to me to commute his sentence. I didn't let him loose because I didn't have that power as a governor. I commutted his sentence to 47 years giving him the oppurtunity to be parole eligible."
Six days after posting bail in Washington on charges of child rape, Clemmons opened fire on four police officers. Huckabee says that isn't the same man he knew back in 2000.
"He wasn't a cop killer. He wasn't a rapist. He wasn't a violent criminal. He wasn't a fugitive from justice. He was a person at 16 did some dumb things and some criminal things. I don't know a single person that can look me in the eye and tell me that if they had that same file in front of them they wouldn't believe that maybe 47 years was a more appropriate sentence for what he did as a minor," Huckabee said.
Huckabee says that if he had to make that decision again today with the knowledge of what Clemmons was going to do, Huckabee would never have changed Clemmons' sentence.
"If I had the exact same information in front of me tonight that I did 9 years ago in a case exactly the same, I would make the exact same decision because I can't imagine anyone would not. If I could have looked into the future, of course I wouldn't have, but I couldn't do that," Huckabee said. "What I don't understand is those who could see his actions. The judges in Washington who knew he had raped a child and that he had now several psychotic episodes why he was able to get out on bail, that I can't answer."
A Seattle police officer shot and killed Maurice Clemmons, the man they suspected in the shooting of four Washington police officers. For now, police are searching for family and friends of Clemmons who they believe helped him elude police.
By 1990, when he was 18 year old, Clemmons had been sentenced to the 108 years in prison for eight felony charges from those teenage years in Arkansas. The total prison term stemmed from multiple sentences, some of which were concurrent and others consecutive The largest sentencing came in 1990, when he was given a 60-year prison term for breaking into an Arkansas state trooper's home and stealing about $6,700-worth of items, including a gun. Clemmons was also sentenced in 1989 to 35 years in prison for robbing a woman at midnight in the parking lot of a Little Rock hotel bar. Clemmons pretended to have a gun in his pocket and threatened to shoot her if she did not give him her purse. When she reportedly responded, "Well, why don't you just shoot?", Clemmons punched her in the head and ran off with the purse, which contained $16 and a credit card. This is the incident that Huckabee talks about Clemmons getting such a long sentence for just stealing $16 dollars. Among Clemmons other sentencings were six years for weapon possession based on an arrest when he was a junior at Hall High School for carrying a .25-caliber pistol on school property; and eight years for burglary, theft and probation in Pulaski County on September 9, 1989. All in all Clemmons was not to be eligible for parole until 2015 or later.
This is the individual and set of criminal circumstances that Huckabee says any of us would have commuted. I disagree...with this string of crimes, and particularly his last one where he stole the large amount of material and the weapon (and being known for being arrested for either carrying weapons or claiming to while committing his crimes), I would have stood by the long sentence to keep this increasingly violent person off of our streets.
Take your crazy talk somewhere else...we're all set here.
Come to think of it, you'd look good in an orange jump suit yourself.
It's not nice for evangelists to lie. You were told the truth last night yet you still perpetuate lies.
And here comes the anti-Christian card. I suppose opposing illegals is non Christian as well. Your messiah, The Huckatard, thinks so.
I agree that Romney has faltered, but I think it is a bit too early yet to pronounce him politically dead. His poll numbers may rebound and with him having all the money in the world that makes him viable at least in the eyes of the media and the GOP establishment.
I am for FAIRNESS. And it is UNFAIR how the right is constantly attacking Huckabee over this. He did not free the man. He did not shoot the cops. People’s reactions on the right are mainly to shoot down a political opponent at the expense of others they like better. I don’t consider that a true Christian motivation.
I would stick up for fairness for every person, no matter what their religion. We’re all equal in God’s eyes: SINNERS.
The fact that Hucksterbee would mis-characterize that $16 robbery means to me that he is totally, completely and fully WITHOUT REMORSE.
He doesn’t give a crap about the dead police officers... only about his prez election prospects.
Hucksterbee is scum.
Jesus is my Messiah. I have no other.
This situation has nothing to do with illegal immigrants.
As far as I'm concerned, he can GTH too!
NEXT!
Maybe you didn’t read Huckabee’s statement, but I did, and he is blaming everybody else for giving bad advice.
That’s not taking full responsibility.
Huckabee's political future.
Ummm, he reduced the sentence enough for Clemmons to become instantly eligible for parole. While the most of the culpability should belong to the idiots who didn’t jail him for various parole violations, this is where the issue started.
Further, this idiot granted clemency to over a 1000 criminals who were subsequently paroled. I wonder how many were hurt or killed thanks to Huckabee’s misplaced generosity?
I hope Huckabee doesn’t waste our time in the coming campaign season.
He’s as dead politically as he always was. The Christian right will never elect a Mormon for President. That might be unfair, but it’s reality.
Ok, so there are some Romney FReepers. I already agreed that you are right about that.
But I’m not one of them and my intense dislike for Hucksterbee — a dislike that is greatly increased by his weasel attitude towards the 4 dead police officers — has absolutely nothing to do with Romney.
It has nothing to do with the prez race of 2012 at all, in fact.
I just don’t like Hucksterbee. Didn’t like him before. Like him even less now.
And it is UNFAIR how the right is constantly attacking Huckabee over this.The "right"? Who is the "right"?
And what are you, the "left"?
The "middle"?
Live by the bleeding heart, die by the bleeding heart. You didn’t open the cell door, you just unlocked it? Look at it this way, Mikey. Clemmons only killed your career, not your sons and daughter.
You got that right. He just can’t stop talking about it. He’s toast.
Huck is reaping what he sowed. He should be ridiculed. And his political future should be over. An example needs to be made of Huck, to prevent future Huck wannabe trajedies. 4 of our bravest are dead because of Huck’s idiocy.
That’s your right of course not to like him. All I am saying is enough with the constant attacks against Huckabee. He didn’t free the man. He wasn’t responsible for giving him bail out in Washington State. He didn’t shoot the cops. If this vitriol continues unabated there is going to be a backlash because I believe that most people are at heart fair and want to look objectively at every issue. That is not happening here. The presumed shooter hasn’t even been caught yet, tried, and convicted, but Huck has already been tried and convicted by people with political agendas.
the Lefts favorite CandidateYou are so right.
They gave us McCain in 2008.
They want us to have the Huckster in 2012.
Anything to help them elect and then re-elect their Marxist Muslim Kenyan.
Hucksterbee was an important part of that strategy... a strategy which was riddled with holes in that coffee shop in Lakeside.
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