“The former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate told a local TV station in West Lafayette, Indiana, on Tuesday that his decision to lessen the 108-year sentence of Maurice Clemmons — who was convicted of aggravated robbery when he was 17 — was ultimately the right one to make, one that others in his shoes would have done as well.”

“Despite the torrent of criticism, Huckabee stuck to his guns. “If I had the exact same information in front of me tonight that I had 9 years ago, in a case exactly the same, I would make the exact same decision, because I can’t imagine that anyone would not,” he said.”

” Clemmons moved from Washington to Arkansas as a youngster. There, he had several run-ins with the law, and eventually received the hefty prison sentence for a host of charges — including robberies, burglaries, thefts and bringing a gun to school.

During a pretrial hearing, he hid a piece of metal in his sock, court documents said. Before the start of another hearing, he grabbed a padlock off his holding cell and threw it at a court bailiff. He missed, and the lock hit his mother, who had come to bring him clothes.

“That’s the one word that came to my mind that I remembered about him, was that he was mean,” said W.A. McCormick, a deputy prosecuting attorney at the time. “He was shackled in court and deputies placed behind him while he was tried because he was such a security risk.”

Clemmons continued to lash out violently behind the prison fences in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

“Over and over again,” said Larry Jegley, the prosecutor who put Clemmons away.

“Failure to obey, engaging in sexual activity,” he rattled off the charges as he flipped through Clemmons’ prison record, “failure to obey, possession or introduction of drugs, firearms.”

McCormick said he told the parole board — repeatedly, in writing — that Clemmons should remain in prison. And he would have opposed it once again if he had known that Huckabee was considering commuting Clemmons’ sentence.”

So Huck knew that Clemmons possessed a firearm while in prison and still granted clemency.

Or punish appropriately, since a lot of crime isn't deterred (many criminals have no conscience or have no medium- as well as long-term orientation of thinking, and are almost entirely impulsive and present-oriented).

Left unsaid deliberately by me earlier, but which also enters this given the hostility and frequent hatred the Left has for the Religious Right, is to what extent the commutation was done on Huckabee's moral grounds (which have a religious involvement), or (more to the point, I was thinking), if the prisoner had claimed to have been reformed and “found” religion, which no doubt would have appealed to the governor.

On the surface, a 16 year old armed purse-snatcher didn't warrant 146 years in prison, and on the advice of his Attorney General, Governor Huckabee commuted the sentence to allow the young man to only serve 11 years – putting him out of prison at 27 years old. I'm saying it was right or wrong, but that's how I've come to understand what happened. I have yet to verify it through research.

I tend to agree with you. You need the right person at the right time.
By 2012, however, I truly think he should be the man for the job. His mix of conservatism and moderate fiscal spending would be ideal to refocus our nation's efforts inward – after Afghanistan.

We need a good “home” President for a while. I'm war weary.

“When a liberal commutes a sentence and the scumbag goes on to kill or rape; it becomes fodder for the right to nail the candidate for 'typical liberal soft-on-crime' policies.”

This is why I wrote earlier about liberals here.  Because,

“When a conservative does the same thing, the left won't touch it because they already have a liberal view of the criminal justice system and commutations play into that hand.

That's probably why there hasn't been many threads on this subject.  Since the mainstream media believes in commutations and smacks-on-the-wrist; they'll stay away from Huckabee (for now) on this one.”

I'm rhetorically daring the liberals to be hypocritical — and to criticize Huckabee or “the GOP” for being “hypocritical” in doing what they have no doubt criticized liberals for doing.

“I like Huckabee.  He is social conservative (like me), but is not a right-winger on many other things.”

I like him, too.  I'm not a social (or religious) conservative, but like him, anyway (and am happy to defend him against the many scummy attacks from the Left).  I believe he may not be as up to the Presidency and as on top of world-affairs, at least not during the 2008 contest, anyway, as would have been Hillary (and earlier, Bill) Clinton, also “from” Arkansas (note).  I do believe he demonstrated himself better than Palin did (to name someone else who wasn't fully informed on world affairs and related issues).  Huckabee more than Palin would have done the conventional thing Vanity Fair “recommended” anyone in Palin's (and to a lesser extent, Huckabee's) position should have done, go back home, study, work with trusted staff, and be better prepped for the next contest.  I believe it's too early to write him (or Palin) off completely, but with three years to go, there's a good chance Huckabee (and Palin) could fade from eventual candidacy.

As far as basic decision-making and sensibility as a President, Huck is just fine, as is Obama currently.

But I'm speculating.

If Huckabee were a liberal and a Democrat, he would be a punching bag for right wing blowhards an example of clueless, soft-on-crime politicians at their worst. Fox News would be stalking him, as they have others responsible for letting criminals out early.

“

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/30…

Yet, government officials let dangerous criminals out of prison early and then refuse to monitor them no matter how much hard they cause. The politicians can do it because they cannot be held legally responsible.

That's probably why there hasn't been many threads on this subject. Since the mainstream media believes in commutations and smacks-on-the-wrist; they'll stay away from Huckabee (for now) on this one.

Not to mention the most obvious problem for any leftie who might be tempted to 'Willie Horton' Huckabee over this- the fact that the Horton ads were universally decried by the left as racist, and this would be no different (for the record, I don't think racism is inherent in either case, since both are actual events in which the governors were involved in pardoning actual criminals who happened to be black- though of course it's quite possible that those who created the Horton ads saw a two-fer in showing a 'scary black man who was let out of jail by a soft-on-crime liberal'.)

Anyway….my take on the current incident is that it gets to the difficult dilemma of trying to preempt crime. At what point should someone be held responsible for not having the prescience to decide which juvenile criminals will go on to become dangerous sociopaths? The answer in my view is that in a free society, we can't risk having this expectation of anyone- which means that Huckabee probably acted appropriately at the time (if the facts as I've currently heard them are accurate.) The sentence that this guy received for his crimes as a 16 year old was excessive, so his sentence was commuted.

As far as our criminal justice system, I stinks all the way around. You can't rehabiliate some kinds of crime. Our prisons should be filled with thieves, petty criminals, and 2nd/3rd degree murderers. The rapists, pedophiles, and 1st degree murderers should be killed. Of course, I don't expect you to agree with that opinion. It's just that…. My opinion.

Allow me to explain that obviously odd statement……

When a liberal commutes a sentence and the scumbag goes on to kill or rape; it becomes fodder for the right to nail the candidate for “typical liberal soft-on-crime” policies.

When a conservative does the same thing, the left won't touch it because they already have a liberal view of the criminal justice system and commutations play into that hand.

That's probably why there hasn't been many threads on this subject. Since the mainstream media believes in commutations and smacks-on-the-wrist; they'll stay away from Huckabee (for now) on this one.

Conversely, I look for the far right to possibly nail him on this during a primary battle.

That said…. I like Huckabee. He is social conservative (like me), but is not a right-winger on many other things. He's not a “true” conservative. And the most important reason I like him: I just plain trust the guy.

Justice is fleeting at best today fleeting all the more. In a system where our system of governance is often confused with our economic model and the combination leads to essentially class justice. I gotta kick out of Tiger Woods turning down the 3rd request for an interview, when in my neighborhood, it wouldn't even have been worded as a request.

It is tempting to do pay back for the Willie Horton advert, to extract a little pleasure in seeing a Repub squirm for something he has little control of. ………..but no, it wasn't right then and it wouldn't be right now.

O'Reilly is the type of guy that sees every social issue in terms of black and white with no shades of gray in between. Everything is either good or evil, and God help you if you're a civil libertarian who is invited onto his show and doesn't agree with his rigid view of the world.

Only time will tell if this will be a fatal blow to a Huckabee bid in 2012 for the Presidency. Aside from being Religious Right (an instant DQ and toxic waste among far lefties), this clemency issue is worse than Willie Horton. (Will the more nefarous Dems hire Horton to be in a political hit ad in 2012, if Horton is around then and so is Huckabee?)

Smaller and less important issues are two. This is an example where a GOP celeb did something (which backfired, in this case) that is normally associated with enlightened liberalism. So think once, then twice, before being too vicious and hypocritical, lefties.

More relevent is that this issue may eventually die, but lefties may not be too upset. It may die because it's another three years until the next Presidential campaign. That's a lot of time for this issue to subside. But (lefties take note) that's also a lot of time for Huckabee as a candidate (independently of this clemency issue) to subside as a Presidential candidate, too. The jockeying (as I've described) it as early as last year by GOP leaders for public view related obviously to an early positioning for the 2012 Presidential campaign is just ludicrous. Even early to mid-2011 is still too early, ridiculously early. (Jeb Bush could still likely do well to wait until January or February 2012 to begin campaigning and win the GOP nomination.) The point here is that the clemency issue may eventually subside, but so will Huckabee, had he been involved in this issue or not.