“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.”
Forty-seven years might seem more appropriate if 47 years actually meant 47 years. It really meant 11 years, as it made him immediately eligible for parole and he was released a month later.
Huckabee obviously knew at the time that 108 years meant 25 to 108 years (he would have been eligible for parole in 2015 if Huckabee had not commuted his sentence) and “47 years” meant he would be released immediately, after only 11 years.
excellent analysis...
This is the nuttiest thing about the justice system. When one side reduces sentences to compensate for the other side, which increases sentences to compensate. At some point someone should realize that no one is accomplishing anything, except to make things more prone to error like the ones that occurred in this case after Huckabee's initial misguided clemency.
At one point in American history...if you got 40 years in prison...you actually sat for forty years in prison. Then we started to say that five years could be knocked off for good behavior....being the good Christians that we were. Then we said ten years could be knocked off. Then we said that fifteen years could be knocked off. Then we said that twenty years could be knocked off.
So now, with a little help from the governor.....we could give a guy 100 years in prison....and he could walk out at the ten year point.
So why bother with court cases? I think the offended family injured...might as well claim what a Scotsman would claim...the right to retribution...and leave the court out of the system entirely. Why bother with the fairness of the situation...leave it to the offended party to dish out punishment.