Washington Post on Mike Huckabee and Maurice Clemmons

From our archives:

Michael Gerson of the Washington Post has written a wonderfully researched and well-thought out analysis of what happened in last week's Washington State police murder tragedy and, like many other objective journalists, has determined Mike Huckabee's clemency of Maurice Clemmons almost a decade ago was a reasonable use of clemency at the time, and that Huckabee is not to blame.


The entire article is very worth the read (thank you, Mr. Gerson), but here's an excerpt for you:

In Federalist 74, Alexander Hamilton writes: "Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed. The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel."

Hamilton contended that strict laws, while necessary, must occasionally be set aside for humanitarian reasons that the "rigor of the law" does not foresee -- a view embodied in the U.S. Constitution and most state constitutions. In Hamilton's time -- with a variety of petty crimes punishable by death -- mercy by the executive was an essential part of a working legal order. Our system -- with the growth of mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes laws -- is not so different, except in severity. It has become easy for nonviolent drug offenders, or troubled teens, to stumble into long prison sentences that effectively end their lives.

This was precisely the case with Clemmons. At age 16, he committed a string of robberies and burglaries. He was sentenced to 108 years in prison without possibility of parole -- a disproportionate punishment by any measure. Eventually, a judge recommended that his sentence be modified. The state parole board agreed. The sentencing judge did not object. Huckabee commuted Clemmons's sentence from 108 years to 47 years, making him eligible for parole. It was the parole board that set Clemmons free, after he had served 11 years in prison.

This second chance offered to Clemmons was rejected. Soon he was back in prison on robbery charges. Because of prosecutorial incompetence -- a warrant served years too late -- Clemmons was free to move to Washington state. There he entered a descending spiral of crime and mental illness -- threatening police officers and sexually assaulting young relatives while claiming to be the Messiah -- that ended in murder. Authorities had chance after chance to put Clemmons away. Their failure caused suffering. But it is unfair to place the responsibility for that failure on an act of clemency a decade earlier.

The truth comes out.

BSR