Merged Huckabee going down? / Huckabee & Clemmons

Wildcat,

If you letter is true then that will be another lie that Huckabee told in his interview with Hannity. He claimed that nobody from the prosecutor's office had objected to his clemency.
 
Lurker said:
Wildcat,

If you letter is true then that will be another lie that Huckabee told in his interview with Hannity. He claimed that nobody from the prosecutor's office had objected to his clemency.
Click to expand...
That letter was from a different case, but it does illustrate Huckabee's flippant attitude about clemency and pardons. Not the type of response you'd expect from someone who weighing such important matters. Huckabee has long been accused by prosecutors of not considering their input when it comes to clemencies and pardons.

We also know Huckabee has been accused of pressuring parole board members (who he appoints) to make the decisions he wants, such as in the DuMond case:
Two members of the state parole board said Huckabee pressured them to show DuMond mercy
Click to expand...
http://durangoherald.com/sections/N...seek_gunman_who_allegedly_shot_four_officers/

It's unknown at this point whether or not he pressured parole board members in the Clemmons case, AFAIK they haven't talked about this yet. I certainly hope reporters are asking the questions! But it certainly seems odd that Clemmons was granted parole given that he had dozens of infractions while in prison, at least several of which were for violent incidents.
Between 1989 and 1998, Clemmons broke prison rules more than two dozen times – sometimes violently, said state prison system spokeswoman Dina Tyler.
Click to expand...
Not exactly a model prisoner, nor the type typically granted parole on their first hearing.
 
Just for the hell of it I looked up this Corey Cox. He's now director of the Arkansas Insurance Department's Criminal Investigation Division and serves on the Arkansas Crime Information Center steering committee and is a criminal justice subject matter expert for the Arkansas Department of Workforce Development.

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/people_ab_40U.asp?id=654

I guess his law degree didn't teach him how to respond properly to a prosecutor.
 
The flippant tone of the letter suggests that the governor and his staff didn't really give a rat's about the opinions of professionals in the legal profession.

Or facts.

Or schizophrenia.

He's toast.
 
I now have more information on the letter to Herzfeld (hat tip to Puppycow). This wasn't a case of a crazy objection over the commutation of some petty criminal's sentence for shoplifting. It was in reference to a convicted murderer:
In 2004, Huckabee commuted the sentence of convicted murderer Denver Witham after prosecuting attorney Robert Herzfeld revealed that Witham had omitted some of his convictions on his pardon application. When Herzfeld wrote a letter to Huckabee suggesting that the governor accept more public input on clemency issues, and explain his reasons for each decision, an aide responded that the governor laughed out loud at Herzfeld's letter, closing, "I wish you success as you cut down on your caffeine consumption."
Click to expand...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/12/02/MN0J1AT88D.DTL#ixzz0YcGDVRSc

I bet Witham claimed to have found Jesus also.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Why think that they were attacked because they were white and not because they were cops?
Click to expand...
This may not make sense to you, but it is possible that the cops being cops was exacerbated in the mind of the assailant by being white. Depends on who the cops were who had most recently arrested him.

Again, I may be wrong.
 
Darth Rotor said:
This may not make sense to you, but it is possible that the cops being cops was exacerbated in the mind of the assailant by being white. Depends on who the cops were who had most recently arrested him.

Again, I may be wrong.
Click to expand...

The thing is that it is speculation about the mind of a someone who seems to have likely not had the firmest grasp on reality.

But if he just wanted to shoot some white guys, it seems strange to pick the police for this. So it would seem likely that his desire to shoot police was more significant than his desire to shoot any white guy.
 
"It is inevitable that citizens will question the motives of public officials who take such dramatic actions without offering the slightest explanation or justification whatsoever. This type of situation damages the credibility of everyone in public service, and is harmful to our democracy."

That says it pretty damn well.
 
You can't blame Huckabee for not knowing that Clemmons would go so spectacularly psycho, but the "LOL" letter is disturbing --- it makes it look as though his whole approach was slapdash.

Plus of course a governor shouldn't be adopting the style of an Internet flame war. Isn't how to give people a polite brush-off the first thing they teach in Politician School?
 
ponderingturtle said:
The thing is that it is speculation about the mind of a someone who seems to have likely not had the firmest grasp on reality.

But if he just wanted to shoot some white guys, it seems strange to pick the police for this. So it would seem likely that his desire to shoot police was more significant than his desire to shoot any white guy.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's either or, I think that if race was a factor it was a factor in combination with another factor. Single cause theories are IMO too simplistic, so my initial "might have been racially motivated" was far too reductionist. More likely is the mixture of both issues, "some white guys and a gal" and them being cops as a possible internal trigger. We probably won't know, since he's dead, so I'll stop with the speculation.

@ Wildcat: Herzfeld's letter sure seems a reasonable input. The gap in time between a 2000 clemency and 2009 shooting spree ought to have allowed Mr Clemmons a chance to unscrew his life, but it didn't. When you combine the elements in this story, it is a reaffirmation of good sense the he didn't get on a presidential ticket.

DR
 
Last edited:
The local radio stations have been mentioning the fact that acquaintances mention Clemmons' having stated that he intended to shoot a few cops.

The coffee shop where it happenmed is run by a retired cop.

That they were all white cops is no surprise. I rarelty see a black Pierce County cop. The black population in the whole state of Washignton is rather small, percentage-wise.

I see no racial element here. It is a matter of mental illness.
 
leftysergeant said:
The local radio stations have been mentioning the fact that acquaintances mention Clemmons' having stated that he intended to shoot a few cops.

The coffee shop where it happenmed is run by a retired cop.

That they were all white cops is no surprise. I rarelty see a black Pierce County cop. The black population in the whole state of Washignton is rather small, percentage-wise.

I see no racial element here. It is a matter of mental illness.
Click to expand...
Thank you, Lefty.

DR
 
Alferd_Packer said:
Apparently Mike Huckabee commuted the sentence of the suspect in the Washington Police shooting.
Click to expand...

I would have.
The guy was 16 with a 108 year sentence.

It is too easy to say after the fact that you wouldn't. It is fun how the left rewrites history. Good ol' Stalinasation. I hear now they say that the war in Iraq that they protested on an hourly basis is a success and a model for what they want in Afghanistan.
 
Last edited:
Bill Thompson said:
I would have.
The guy was 16 with a 108 year sentence.
Click to expand...

And he was already off his rocker, and wound up in jail again in less than a year. He should have gone back into the slammer and stayed there.

It is fun how the left rewrites history. Good ol' Stalinasation. I hear now they say that the war in Iraq that they protested on an hourly basis is a success and a model for what they want in Afghanistan.
Click to expand...

Where did THAT come from?

Wait, don't bother. I can tell from the smell.
 
Bill Thompson said:
I would have.
The guy was 16 with a 108 year sentence.
Click to expand...
And he had over 2 dozen infractions while in prison, some of which were violent infractions.

Parole is supposed to be for those prisoners who obeyed the rules while in prison.
 
Bill Thompson said:
I would have.
The guy was 16 with a 108 year sentence.
Click to expand...
Besides what Wildcat said, it's not really about just this one case. It's about the overall pattern.

It is too easy to say after the fact that you wouldn't. It is fun how the left rewrites history. Good ol' Stalinasation. I hear now they say that the war in Iraq that they protested on an hourly basis is a success and a model for what they want in Afghanistan.
Click to expand...

Actually, the right is probably slamming him even harder than the left. And not everyone on the left was against the war, nor everyone on the right in favor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom