Four caskets arrive for the Dec. 8 memorial service for four slain police officers in Tacoma, Wash. (photo: Seattle Times)

Huckabee’s deadly gamble
by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
December 9, 2009
http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6672/huckabees-deadly-gamble

FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR MIKE HUCKABEE wasn’t mincing words last week when he blasted criticism of the clemency he granted Maurice Clemmons in 2000 — clemency that ultimately led to the Thanksgiving weekend murder of four Washington state police officers — as “disgusting,” or when he deplored “how sick our society has become that people are more concerned about a campaign three years from now” — the 2012 presidential campaign — “than those grieving families in Washington.”
“Disgusting” and “sick” are strong words. But this isn’t the first time Huckabee has lashed out at critics of his clemency decisions.
In 2004, when the then-governor’s commutation enabled Eugene Fields — who had been given a six-year sentence for his fourth drunk-driving conviction — to walk free after less than eight months behind bars, the director of Arkansas Mothers Against Drunk Driving complained. “We are deeply disturbed,” she said, “at the message this sends to those who faithfully enforce, prosecute, adjudicate, serve on juries, and suffer the consequences of drunk driving offenders.” Huckabee fired off an angry letter accusing MADD of trying to “fan the flames of controversy” and pandering to “the unusual curiosity of certain media members.”
Even more supercilious was the reply received by prosecutor Robert Herzfeld, who wrote a letter calling Huckabee’s clemency policies “fatally flawed” and suggesting that it would be “more respectful to the people of Arkansas” for Huckabee to explain his reasons when issuing a pardon or commutation. From Huckabee’s office came a mocking rejoinder: “The governor read your letter and laughed out loud. He wanted me to respond to you. I wish you success as you cut down on your caffeine consumption.”
Huckabee holds himself out as an exemplar and judge of good character — two of his books are titled Character Makes a Difference and Character IS the Issue — but so far he has not mustered the integrity to admit that Herzfeld was right: His promiscuous approach to executive clemency has indeed proved indeed fatal. During his 10½ years as governor, he pardoned or commuted the sentences of an astonishing 1,033 criminals (including 12 convicted murderers) — more than twice as many grants of clemency as his three immediate predecessors combined. Had Huckabee been less eager to usher Clemmons to an early release, Mark Renninger, Tina Griswold, Gregory Richards, and Ronnie Owens — the four police officers gunned down in a Tacoma, Wash., coffee shop last month — might still be alive.
There is no telling how many innocents have been victimized by Huckabee’s parolees. The shocking massacre in Tacoma made headlines nationwide, but what about the other violent criminals set free thanks to a Huckabee commutation? How many of them went onto commit new rapes, new armed robberies, new assaults? How many of them will do so in the years ahead?
Huckabee defends himself by pointing out that the Clemmons whose sentence he commuted in 2000 was not yet a rapist and murderer. “If I could have possibly known what Clemmons would do nine years later,” Huckabee insists, “I obviously would have made a different decision.”

Thousands of mourners salute as coffins bearing the four slain police officers are carried out of the Tacoma Dome following the memorial service on Dec. 8. (Photo: Seattle Times)
But that doesn’t explain why Huckabee saw fit to overrule the Arkansas judges and jurors who saw Clemmons up close, tried his criminal cases, heard the evidence for and against him, sized him up as a dangerous, violent, unrepentant thug, and concluded not only that he was guilty, but that he deserved to be sentenced to a combined 108 years in prison. The original judges and jurors were no more prophetically endowed than Huckabee, but they were right about Clemmons. Huckabee, along with Arkansas’ parole board, was wrong. He should have the backbone to say so.
It doesn’t take a seer to know that when criminals are released early, more crime follows. In 2002, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, summarizing data from the largest recidivism study ever conducted in the United States, reported that more than 67 percent of former inmates released from state prison are rearrested for at least one serious new crime within three years. Between 1994 and 1997, criminals paroled in just 15 states racked up 744,000 new arrest charges. “These charges,” the bureau noted, “included almost 21,000 homicides, 200,000 robberies, 50,000 rapes and sexual assaults, and almost 300,000 assaults.”
Other than in cases of manifest injustice, when a judge and jury say a criminal belongs behind bars, clemency should be all but unthinkable. Governors have no business gambling with the lives and safety of their constituents. Huckabee “laughed out loud” when a prosecutor warned him that early release can be fatal.

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The column quoted above by Jeff Jacoby illustrates perfectly the point I am making in the title to the post:  COMPASSION AND FORGIVENESS ARE ESSENTIAL FOR THE INDIVIDUAL, BUT DANGEROUS FOR THOSE IN AUTHORITY.

In the Gospel of Saint Matthew we read “Then Peter went up to him and said, ‘Lord, how ofter must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me?  As often as seven times?'”  Jesus answered, ‘Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.'”  (Mt. 18:21-22)

The individual has the great and serious obligation to have compassion on the sinner and to forgive offenses against oneself.  But the responsibility of those who are charged with securing and fostering the common good must be careful to not let their subjective feelings of compassion sway their objective judgment in administering the laws of society which are intended to preserve peace and safety for all the members of society.

Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist Minister, while serving as Governor of the State of Arkansas allowed his strong feeings of compassion and the need to forgive to overcome his good judgment of what was in the best interest of the people of Arkansas (and the State of Washington) when he so freely accepted the recommendations of  the State’s parole board and released criminals back into society.

Governor Michael Dukakis had his presidential ambitions destroyed by the discovery that he had pardoned a criminal who later committed serious crimes; I suspect that Governor Michael Huckabee would be well advised to forget about running for president in the future.