Posted on 12/02/2009 9:30:01 PM PST by SmithL
There is no need to tiptoe gingerly around this topic: Maurice Clemmons, who was shot and killed as authorities tried to apprehend him for the shooting deaths of four Washington police officers - is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's Willie Horton.
Horton, you might recall, is the convicted killer who raped a woman while wrongly released as part of a prison furlough program supported by former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis - thus helping to torpedo the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee's bid for the White House. The Clemmons' story likewise should kill any chance of Huckabee winning, should he run in 2012.
Clemmons was 17 in 1989 when he was convicted on a string of felony charges including aggravated robbery, burglary and possession of a gun at a school, and sentenced to a jaw-dropping 108 years. Huckabee told Joe Scarborough's radio show, "If he were a white kid from an upper middle-class family, he would have gotten a lawyer and some counseling. But he was a young black kid, he got 108 years."
The parole board and a judge supported the release, even though Clemmons had more than two dozen rule violations while in prison, including citations for fighting in 1998 and 1997. Arkansas Department of Correction spokesperson Dina Tyler described Clemmons as a teen who entered prison "angry, aggressive and lacking coping skills," who had outgrown that stage.
Unfortunately, Clemmons had not outgrown his menace-to-society stage. Within a year of his release, he was back in prison on robbery charges.
And once again, Clemmons won parole in 2004. In a statement, Huckabee said that if Clemmons killed the four officers, "this horrible tragedy" would be the "result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington state."
Be it noted, Huckabee opened that door.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Well, that headline sounds like a biased “liberal” attempt to change the subject. Yes, he was culpable but come on...that headline is asinine...
Why didn’t this scandal dog Huckleberry in the Republican primaries? Surely neither Romney nor McCain had too many scruples?
Huckabee has no shame. Not only passing the buck, but his utter lack of tact or compassion- for the real victims, I mean, not the criminals who prey on them.
Never thought I’d read a liberal rag from SF “complain” about clemency given to killers — oh, just remembered, the subject is a “conservative, Republican.” Delete comment...
Actually, it did. The Romney campaign brought it up with Wayne Dumond laying the entire fault at Huckabee's feet, and ignoring the Arkansas Parole Board's involvement.
It may have hurt Huckabee then, but it didn't end his career.
And while the end result of the Clemons case was worse, the information on Clemons at the time of the decision doesn't look nearly as bad.
That to a gay rag from SF is like candy to a baby. That's irresistable. They'd come near admitting homosexuality is a perversion and a sin, if it meant they got to bash Huckabee in the process.
Saunders is a conservative writer and I think she went too easy on Huckleberry. He didnt do his homework, he didnt take input from victims, and he handed these out like candy if it came from the "right" source.
Face it, the guy is history.
Oh my. Gone from the public eye. Bu-Bye.
Well...maybe that is a good thing. I understand sympathy but to forgive this type of criminal is beyond my understanding. I guess that these governors have a bit more information, but it does seem to prove their decisions wrong again and again...
When he gave out more pardons than every bordering state...COMBINED, then the candy reference seems appropriate.
“When he gave out more pardons than every bordering state...COMBINED, then the candy reference seems appropriate.”
Clearly he was out of control...and one of these little actions was going to take him out. Better now than later...after he would wreck a second election for the Republican Party.
This is truly amazing. Some liberal airhead from SF was trying to write an article praising Huckabee for pardoning so many poor victims of the system. Then when she researched Huckabee's pardons for her article even she couldn't stomach Huckabee's hypocritical politicking and his blatant disregard for protecting the public.
Huckabee's record on pardons is so bad even SF leftists are disgusted by it.
Well, I would have to have some kind of proof of that statement... Link?
I don’t think that they were “pardon”, just commuted the sentences. It’s basically the same thing that Gregoire has promised to do in WA.
Yes, I understand but did not like the all out denigration of Huckabee (even though I would never vote for him). After all, he is at least a Semi-Conservative - or at least not a Democrat. That makes him a much nicer fellow that all those southern Democrats...heh.
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