Mike Huckabee: Serial Criminal Enabler

Lakewood, Washington is nestled between Ft. Lewis and McChord Air Force Base, a few miles south of Tacoma. Like many military towns, it survives on businesses that cater to servicemen and women. On Union Street, which runs parallel to Interstate 5, are about a dozen barbershops, pawn shops, military surplus stores and several locally owned restaurants GIs fill every weekday for lunch. On the weekends, residents of Lakewood stand on an overpass of I-5, wave American flags at passing motorists and tie yellow ribbons on the chain length barriers to show their unwavering support for the military and its missions. The murder of four Lakewood police officers is devastating to this small community. And it didn’t have to happen. Police officers finally killed Maurice Clemmons, 37, after a frantic search to find him before he could kill again. He had a long record of violent crime, and was out of jail on bail for child rape and assaulting a police officer. In 2000, then Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR) commuted the sentence of Clemmons after he had served only 11 years of a 108-year sentence. Why? According to Huckabee, his sentence was harsh since he was young and black. Huckabee is a serial pardoner. During his 10 years as governor, Huckabee pardoned or commuted over 1,000 convicted criminals, far more than previous governors. His sense of compassion overtook his common sense. He believes his judgment is superior to the judges and jurors who heard the thousand cases he essentially overturned. Huckabee’s tendency for compassion became apparent during the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, when it became known that he supported in-state tuition for illegal aliens. In defending himself, Huckabee points out that Clemmons was on bail at the time of the murders, insinuating the judge is to blame. This just reinforces why Huckabee shouldn’t have commuted a career criminal like Clemmons in the first place. He grants over 1,000 pardons and commutations and then attacks others instead of taking responsibility for his decision. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that at least one of the thousand prisoners he pardoned would revert to a life of crime? Clemmons was convicted of burglary and robbery. How many more people did he victimize before he killed the four police officers? We may never know. Did Huckabee consult with any of Clemmons’ victims, or any of the other victims of those he pardoned? I seriously doubt it. What Huckabee and like-minded people don’t realize is that someone doesn’t wake up in the morning and decide to commit a burglary or a robbery. Criminals usually work their way up to committing violent felonies. When finally caught for the first time, their attorneys claim they are “first offenders.” Nonsense. Police departments are not perfect, and police detectives do not solve every case before them. At least half of all reported crime goes unsolved. Many paroled prisoners return to prison within three years. Clemmons was arrested again for burglary six months after Huckabee released him from prison. Where’s the accountability? Who should be held to answer for crimes committed by persons pardoned by governors and presidents? The prisoners themselves of course, but why not attach some liability to those who released them early? The concept of pardons goes back to the nation’s founding. The framers of the Constitution felt that only the president should have the power to pardon federal convicts. But they never dreamed that one day a president named Bill Clinton would exchange pardons for donations to the Democratic National Committee and his presidential library, as was the case with Marc Rich, whose ex-wife made substantial donations. In the final hours of his presidency, Clinton pardoned Rich, who was still a fugitive living in Europe. Many argued Rich was ineligible for a pardon because he was never convicted, much like President Gerald Ford’s pardoning of Richard Nixon for crimes he “may” have committed while in office. Let’s hope President Obama exercises his authority to pardon judiciously, and doesn’t sell them on his way out the door to private life.