Wash. shooting re-opens Huckabee's clemency
record
Monday, November 30,
2009 7:03 PM EST
The Associated Press
By ANDREW DeMILLO Associated Press Writer
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — As governor of Arkansas,
Mike Huckabee had a hand pardoning or commuting many
more prisoners than his three immediate predecessors
combined. Maurice Clemmons, the suspect in Sunday's
slaying of four Seattle-area police officers, was
among them.
For a politician considering another run for the
White House, Clemmons could become Huckabee's Willie
Horton.
"In a primary between a law-and-order Republican
and him, I think it could definitely be a
vulnerability," said Art English, a political
scientist at the University of Arkansas at Little
Rock. "It is very damaging when you have someone
like that whose sentence was commuted. That's pretty
high profile and very devastating and very tragic."
English said it's hard to avoid comparing the
case to Horton, a convicted killer who raped a woman
and assaulted her fiance while on release as part of
a prison furlough program supported by Michael
Dukakis when he was governor of Massachusetts.
Allies of former President George H.W. Bush ran
ads criticizing Dukakis for his support of the
program, undermining the Democrat's presidential
campaign.
As recently as Sunday, hours before the shooting
suspect was linked to him, Huckabee said he was
leaning against running again for president, telling
"Fox News Sunday" he was "less likely rather than
more likely" to run.
On Monday, Huckabee offered little explanation
for why he made Clemmons eligible for parole in
2000, and called the case a failure of the justice
systems in Arkansas and Washington.
"If I could have known nine years ago and could
have looked into the future, would I have acted
favorably upon the Parole Board's recommendation? Of
course not," Huckabee told Fox News Radio on Monday.
Huckabee was expected to discuss the Clemmons
case Monday night during an interview with Fox News
Channel's Bill O'Reilly.
Clemmons was among 1,033 people who were pardoned
or had their sentences reduced during Huckabee's 10
1/2 years as governor, a number that far surpasses
that of his three predecessors combined. Bill
Clinton, Frank White and Jim Guy Tucker granted 507
clemencies in the 17 1/2 years they served. Beebe,
Huckabee's Democratic successor, has issued 273
commutations and pardons since taking office in
January 2007 — all but one of them were pardons
after the completion of the inmates' prison terms.
Huckabee's role in gaining the release of a
convicted rapist, Wayne DuMond, was the subject of
an attack ad during his presidential run. While
Huckabee's predecessor, Tucker, reduced DuMond's
sentence making him eligible for parole, Huckabee
took steps almost immediately after taking office to
win DuMond's release.
Two members of the state parole board said
Huckabee pressured them to show DuMond mercy, while
Huckabee publicly questioned whether DuMond was
guilty of the rape of a teenage girl. During the
presidential primaries, a conservative group aired
television commercials in South Carolina featuring
the mother of Carol Sue Shields, whom DuMond killed
in 2000 after his release.
Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley, whose
office opposed Clemmons' parole in 2000 and 2004,
said Huckabee created a flaw in the Arkansas justice
system by freeing the number of prisoners he did.
"(Clemmons) should have stayed locked up like the
jury wanted him and we wouldn't even be having this
discussion," Jegley said.
"I just have been figuratively holding my breath
and hoping something like this wouldn't happen,"
Jegley said. "I just think that a lot of the people
that were subjects of clemency during that period of
time were some very dangerous people who didn't need
to be let out."
Clemmons also had the backing of Pulaski County
Circuit Judge Marion Humphrey, who urged the board
to grant clemency. Humphrey later presided over
Clemmons' 2004 wedding in his court chambers.
Prosecutors have said Huckabee, a Southern
Baptist preacher, was more inclined to release or
reduce the sentences of prisoners if he had direct
contact with them or was lobbied by those close to
him. Clemmons' letter perhaps appealed to Huckabee's
Christian faith.
In his application for clemency, Clemmons wrote
that he prayed Huckabee would show him compassion
and said at the time of his crimes he had just moved
to Arkansas from Seattle. Clemmons also wrote that
he had changed his life since "the angel of death
has visited and taken away my dear sweet mother."
In 1989, Clemmons, then 17, was convicted in
Little Rock for aggravated robbery and other charges
and sentenced to 95 years. Between 1989 and 1998,
Clemmons broke prison rules more than two dozen
times — sometimes violently, said state prison
system spokeswoman Dina Tyler.
Clemmons didn't stay out long. He was convicted
of robbery in Ouachita County in 2001, but was
released again in 2004 by the parole board. Little
Rock police say Clemmons also faced charges here in
2001 but prosecutors dropped the additional charges
when Clemmons was released a second time. Months
after his 2004 release, Clemmons was named as a
suspect in an aggravated robbery at a hotel in
Little Rock but he was not charged.
Saline County Circuit Judge Robert Herzfeld, who
as a prosecutor successfully sued Huckabee over
clemency practices, said Huckabee's decision to give
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards a pardon for
a 1975 traffic offense after meeting him at a
concert showed how lightly the ex-governor
approached the practice.
"That just said volumes about how he considered
this serious ultimate power over freedom as a joke,"
Herzfeld said.
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