re: #80 HappyWarrior

Why would he listen to the prosecutor? That’s not unbiased advice at all. Of course the prosecutor is going to want the guy to stay in prison, he’s the one who got the guy convicted in the first place. The prosecutor’s job isn’t to render justice, it’s to put people in prison and keep them there. On the other hand, at least one judge supported his clemency application and was probably responsible for it getting through the bureaucracy and reaching Huckabee’s desk at all.

This celebrity factor really bothers me, though, because everyone’s blaming Huckabee for the kid’s first prison sentence, when the guy had been arrested at least THREE TIMES since then, and if the system had been working like it should, this never would have happened. He committed armed robbery less than a year after Huckabee commuted his sentence, and he should’ve been back in prison serving the rest of his forty-eight years (plus another decade for the robbery) right after that; however, the system somehow managed to bungle the case that not only was the parole violation dropped, but the parole board let him out of his ten-year robbery sentence after just three years. He then moved to Washington and was placed under the supervision of the Washington Dept of Corrections.

After that, he was fine till five years later (I’m guessing there’s a reason behind this, probably involving health insurance and expensive antipsychotic meds), when he threw rocks at houses and got into a fistfight with the police officer that showed up, was arrested and charged, and released after he made bail. The very next day, he sexually abused underage relatives, then somehow managed to evade police for a month and a half before finally showing up in court on his own, getting arrested again. This time, the court commissioned a mental health exam from a nearby hospital and he was found to be dangerous, and given the nature and timing of his last offense it was pretty clear he shouldn’t be making bail, yet he was still allowed to post bail again and get back out on the streets. The court psychologist is at fault too; despite numerous reports of his unstable mental state, his own recent behavior, and the report from the hospital psychologists, he deemed Clemmons to be mentally unimpaired and fit to stand trial - no doubt at the urging of the prosecutor, who smelled an easy conviction.

Out of the hundreds of people in the justice system who handled Clemmons at some point, Huckabee bears the least fault for this incident. Sure, Huckabee’s response that this reflected badly on ALL the people in the Arkansas and Washington systems was a clear case of trying to weasel out of the inevitable political backlash…but it’s also completely true! It’s only because of the celebrity factor and partisanism that he had to “weasel out” of anything in the first place. He doesn’t have anything to apologize for, after all; this was very much not his fault, and an apology would just mean he bent to political pressure and put his reelection chances before his personal values. If only there were prominent Democrats with that much integrity. I’m not a Huckabee supporter, but though he has many, many faults, this is not one of them.

To be honest, given that the only reasons to attack Huckabee over this are partisan politics or a personal hate for Huckabee, LGF’s recent claims of going independent and discarding partisanship are looking a little weak right now.