By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Under fire for his 2000 decision to reduce the prison sentence of a man later suspected of killing four police officers in Washington state, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says he accepts responsibility for his actions — while also lashing out at critics and pointing fingers at other state officials.

“I take full responsibility for my actions of nine years ago,” Huckabee wrote in a statement posted late Monday on the Web site Newsmax.com. “I acted on the facts presented to me in 2000. If I could have possibly known what (Maurice) Clemmons would do nine years later, I obviously would have made a different decision. But if the same file was presented to me today, I would have likely made the same decision.”

Clemmons was serving a 108-year sentence on convictions for robbery and other crimes when Huckabee commuted his sentence to 47 years, making him immediately eligible for parole. Clemmons, who was a 17 when he entered the prison system, was paroled in August 2000 after serving 11 years.

A Seattle police officer shot and killed Clemmons early Tuesday, two days after authorities say he gunned down four Lakewood, Wash., police officers in an coffee shop.

Huckabee finished second to John McCain in the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, but some have speculated that his connection to Clemmons may have doomed his political future. Today, Huckabee said on Joe Scarborough’s radio show on WABC that his opponents are using the incident to attack him.

“It is disgusting, but people use anything for a political weapon, and I’ll tell you what happens: It reduces people in office to making decisions not based on what really ought to be done from a standpoint of justice but really making them on, ‘How is this going to affect my political life?’” he said.

Huckabee said people’s thoughts should be with the family members of the slain police officers, not on the political consequences for him.

He also criticized Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley for his handling of Clemmons’ case.

“He (Clemmons) left the prison system, violated his parole, should have been kept and would have been kept to 2015 except the Little Rock prosecutor, who is crowing about how he protested this guy and saw this coming — which is not true, he never registered a complaint with our office — he failed to file charges that would have kept this guy in prison and he got out.”

Clemmons was convicted of aggravated robbery in Ouachita County in 2001 and was paroled a second time in 2004, under an agreement that his parole be transferred to Washington state. Following his release, he was served with a 2000 warrant from Pulaski County charging him with two counts of aggravated robbery, but Jegley’s office decided not to pursue the case. Jegley has said there were “speedy trial problems” with the case.

Documents obtained from the state Parole Board show Jegley did object to Clemmons’ parole after Huckabee commuted his sentence, but he did not object to Clemmons’ original application for clemency and did not register an objection during the period — state law requires at least 30 days — between Huckabee’s announcement that he would commute the sentence and the actual commutation.

“We never got notice,” Jegley said Tuesday. “I checked the records, and we’re meticulously attentive to protesting any parole or clemency application that involves a felony of violence, and this certainly qualifies.”

But Jegley said that based on Huckabee’s record, an objection from the prosecutor’s office wouldn’t have mattered.

“My question to him would be pretty simple: Does that mean if we had protested and objected to you giving this man clemency you wouldn’t have done it?” Jegley said.

“I think the honest answer is obvious because he went ahead over our objections, and not just here but all around the state. He went ahead after protests from sheriffs and judges and prosecutors and from victims, he went ahead and granted clemency,” he said.

During his 10 1/2 years as governor, Huckabee granted more commutations and pardons than the three previous governors combined.

Huckabee said today he also received no objections regarding Clemmons from then-Attorney General Mark Pryor, now a U.S. senator, or from law enforcement.

“I’m not blaming any of those people, because if they’d looked at that record that I saw nine years ago they would have seen a 16-year-old kid commit crimes for which normally there would have been a few years, and if he’d been white and upper-middle class with a good lawyer he’d have gotten probation, a fine and some counseling. But because he was a young black kid he got 108 years,” Huckabee said.

——-
Reporter Rob Moritz contributed to this report.