Huckabee blames Bill Clinton for release of rapist-murderer

[meegbear]

Republican president candidate Mike Huckabee has recently come under fire from the conservative American Spectator magazine for having secured the parole in 1997, while he was governor of Arkansas, of a rapist who then murdered a woman.

"Governors don't parole anybody," Huckabee insisted to Fox News. He went on to blame the two Democrats who immediately preceded him in the Arkansas governor's office, saying, "The people who made that decision were all appointees of Jim Guy Tucker and Bill Clinton, who, in fact, commuted his sentence and made him parole eligible."

At the time, many Republicans were campaigning for leniency for convicted rapist Wayne DuMond, claiming that he had been railroaded in his original sentencing because the rape victim was a distant relative of then-Governor Clinton. Huckabee had met with DuMond's wife, expressed his intention of seeing the man set free, and shortly after becoming governor spoke privately with the parole board, which granted parole two months later.

Huckabee now says that he does not recall what he said to the parole board, but that he had changed his mind about DuMond and was attempting to deny clemency at the time the parole was granted.

Huckabee also suggested to Fox that the Spectator is reviving the controversy now for purely partisan reasons. "I'm not the darling of every conservative," he stated. "Some of them don't like it that I'm actually out there talking about the importance of conservation. ... I'm not a Wall Street Republican."

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Huckabee_blames_Clinton_Admin._for_release_1101.html

[gasperc]

1. God says "Liars will burn in Hell"

so Mike, I'd make sure all my clothes are flame retardent, although, come to think of it I'd don't think that will matter.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

2. "many Republicans were campaigning for leniency for convicted rapist Wayne DuMond"

WTF?!? I thought Republicans were so Law and Order.

And Huckabee secured the guy's parole in 1997. Which makes it Clinton's fault? The almighty power of Bill Clinton never ceases to amaze me. :sarcasm:

[asjr]

3. Of course everyone knows that

Clinton traveled back in time and was responsible for the assination of Abe Lincoln.

[Der Blaue Engel]

4. Wait, so it's Clinton's fault the guy was convicted AND that he was paroled?

Wow, that Clinton, he's got more pull than Jesus.

Next, Huckabee will blame the rape itself on Clinton.

These people are so lame.

[Arkansas Granny]

5. I'm not surprised that he does not recall, however, here are a couple

or local news reports about it.

----------
Then a caller asked Huckabee why he pardoned Wayne DuMond, a convicted rapist who was released from prison in Arkansas in 1999 and was later convicted in the murder of a Missouri woman.

Huckabee, who is considering a run for the presidency after he leaves office in January, cut the caller off in mid-sentence.

"Just let me tell you something. I've listened to this stuff, and it's just not true, and if you get your facts straight I'll answer your question, but I'm not going to let you sit there and hammer me on something that is totally untrue," he said.

Huckabee said DuMond's sentence was commuted from life in prison in 1992 by Jim Guy Tucker, while Bill Clinton was governor and Tucker was serving as acting governor. DuMond never received a pardon, he said.

However, Huckabee did announce shortly after he took office that he intended to grant clemency to DuMond, and questioned his guilt. The governor later denied DuMond's clemency request the same day the state parole board voted to grant DuMond parole. He wasn't actually freed until two years later, when the board accepted his parole plan to move out of state.
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2006/11/02/News/338335.html

---------------
Huckabee has also presided over his share of dust-ups and controversies as governor, including his role in the parole of castrated rapist Wayne DuMond.

DuMond initially was sentenced to life plus 20 years, but Tucker reduced the sentence to 39 1/2 years, making DuMond parole-eligible. Shortly after taking office, Huckabee announced in September 1996 he intended to grant clemency to DuMond, who was sentenced to life in prison following his conviction in the 1984 rape of a Forrest City teenager.

The governor said publicly at the time he doubted DuMond's guilt and DuMond had served long enough, considering he had been castrated while awaiting trial. DuMond said masked men attacked him at his home, but no one was ever charged. Huckabee ultimately denied DuMond clemency the same day the Post Prison Transfer Board voted to grant parole.

The vote came just months after the board had voted to deny parole, and after Huckabee, according to some board members, discussed DuMond's case privately with the board.
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2006/12/30/news/123106arhuckabeeinterview.txt

--------------

Sounds kinda like he flop-flopped on this one to me.

[TwilightGardener]

8. The girl who was raped (Ashley Stevens) PLEADED with Huck personally not to release

Dumond:

"Stevens, now 40 and living in the western United States, said she tried to persuade Huckabee not to shorten the sentence for Dumond.

"I told : If you ever let him out, he's going to do it again," she said in an interview.

She was able to get a meeting with the governor - who, she said, had not spoken to her before announcing his intention to commute Dumond's sentence - but realized Huckabee had "made up his mind." So Stevens stood up, she said, walked over to Huckabee, who was seated on a sofa, squatted down and thrust her face inches from his.

"I said, 'This is how close I was to Dumond's face for an hour,' " Stevens recalled. " 'I'll never forget his face, and you'll never forget mine.' "

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/10/14/huckabee_could_face_hurdles_from_the_past/

Should the Repubs be stupid enough to nominate this jackass, Hillary's attack ad writes itself.

[TwilightGardener]

6. Too bad he wrote a "Dear Wayne" letter:

"On October 31, Huckabee met with the parole board. Not long after, the board voted to free Dumond, but on the condition he move to another state. Huckabee was pleased, in part because — given that the board had voted to free Dumond — there was no need for Huckabee to commute the sentence or pardon him. So Huckabee denied Dumond’s now-irrelevant pardon application while at the same time congratulating him on his freedom. “Dear Wayne,” Huckabee wrote in a letter to Dumond. “My desire is that you be released from prison. I feel that parole is the best way for your reintroduction to society to take place.”

I ask about the “Dear Wayne” letter. Didn’t Huckabee want Dumond to go free? “I thought he would, you know, be clean,” Huckabee tells me. “And he had a job, he had sponsors lined up, so at the time, I did not have this apprehension that something horrible like that would happen. I did want him to report in , because I just didn’t know — you never know about a guy like that.”

--snip--

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=YzVmNmMyMjJmZTQwOGRhNTI0OWFiYTQ1ZTAxN2M0MDM=

This guy is a bald-faced liar. I'm sorry, I know he has a lot of fans on DU because he pretends to care about the poor, but he's a scary fucking psychopath, and has delusions of grandeur as well:

“The far left and the far right curse the ground on which I walk,” Huckabee told me Monday."
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1007/6606.html

Legend in his own mind.

[AtomicKitten]

7. Wow, that's pretty mean coming from such nice man.

But then again when he starts talking about Adam and Eve riding dinosaurs to church, nice becomes a relative term.

[w4rma]

9. Willie Horton, part 2? (nt)

[FredScuttle]

10. Mike Huckabee: Pro-Rape

It will be a Willie Horton ad....except that it'll be the truth when it states that "Governor Huckabee personally went above and beyond the call of duty to release a convicted rapist...who went on to rape and kill another women after his release"

[gratuitous]

11. Huckabee's having some memory problems

The case of Wayne DuMond became one of those right-wing hothouse controversies because the girl Wayne had violated was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, and the assumption was that Clinton had railroaded poor Wayne, and further, that it was Clinton who orchestrated the crude jailhouse castration of Mr. DuMond by a gang of inmates.

Huckabee got rolled by this controversy, and personally intervened with the Arkansas parole board to spring DuMond when he was governor. He even wrote a "Dear Wayne" letter to the parolee, explaining why he was merely granting clemency to DuMond rather than a full pardon. This humanitarian act blew up in Huckabee's face when DuMond went on a little serial killing spree. DuMond was convicted of one murder, and died in prison in Missouri before he could be convicted of another murder.

Now Huckabee, duped by Arkansas Project idiots into springing DuMond because DuMond was an alleged victim of the all-powerful Clenis, now wants to paint DuMond as a beneficiary of the Clenis. Well, which is it, Mr. Huckabee? Was DuMond victimized by Clinton of a crime he didn't commit, or was he set free to murder twice by Clinton? It really can't work both ways, you know.

[ArkySue]

12. DuMond is only ONE of many...

...criminals that Huckabee released, including at least 12 murderers.

Huckabee says redemption a factor in clemency decisions
Thursday, Jul 22, 2004
<snip> The governor has been criticized publicly by prosecutors in Pulaski and Saline counties for his release of violent criminals.

Huckabee two weeks ago issued proclamations granting clemency for Denver Witham, who is serving life in prison for a 1974 murder in Saline County, and for John H. Claiborne, who is serving 375 years in prison for a 1994 kidnapping and armed robbery conviction in Pulaski County.

Based on information from the secretary of state's office, Jegley said Huckabee has granted 669 clemencies since he became governor in 1996. The previous three governors, Bill Clinton, Frank White and Jim Guy Tucker, granted a total of 507 clemencies during their 18 years in office, he said.

http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2004/07/22/News/261108.html

---------------

Convict freed by Huckabee is arrested
BY VAN JENSEN AND JIM BROOKS

Posted on Tuesday, July 3, 2007
<snip>
While disrupting an apparent prostitution-turned-theft operation this weekend, North Little Rock police arrested a convicted murderer who was granted clemency by former Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Wade Stewart, 50, of 310 W. Scenic Drive in North Little Rock, was arrested after police found a. 38-caliber revolver tucked into his waistband.
snip>On Dec. 18, 2004, Huckabee granted clemency to Stewart, who was serving a life sentence in the Aug. 25, 1973 shooting death of Nicholas Papadopolos, 25, in Little Rock.

Stewart, the 12 th convicted murderer to be granted clemency by Huckabee during his tenure as governor, was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and is being held without bond.
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/194674/

Much much more info at the links. Please notice the dates on these articles as well. This has been an ongoing problem.
Huckabee makes the Willie Horton thing look like a walk in the park.

Now Huckabee's crime-prevention plan is for every "law-abiding citizen" to carry a gun. Great.
Read more on that from the Hardball interview on Sept 21, 2007.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20955877/

[AX10]

13. Please make this into it's own thread.

[TwilightGardener]

14. That's what happens when your religious convictions (redemption?) override your common sense.

That's why he should never, ever be President.

[iverglas]

15. executive, legislative, judicial ...

I always find it wise to remember the differences between the various branches of government. Methinks members of executive branches of governments in the US would save themselves a whole lot of problems if they'd just do the same.

Sorry, intermeddling foreignerness again! It always just strikes me as odd how you rebels threw off the yoke of monarchy and then set yourselves up with more heavy-handed executives than any modern-day constitutional monarchy has, or than we who live in them would stand for!

To get a pardon in Canada, you apply to the parole board. To get a wrongful conviction overturned, you go to a court. It works amazingly well!

[Yukari Yakumo]

16. um....

[TwilightGardener]

17. I don't know--is this a Presidential candidate? Guess so. Do we want to know his record and

history? Guess so. So what's YOUR point?

[WCGreen]

18. Fuck this guy....

[ncteechur]

19. NCTeechur blames Mike Huckabee for being a twit.