By David J. Sanders
Until now, Mike Huckabee has been a serial obfuscator, intent on blaming others and eliding his way through potential scandals involving criminals who, thanks to his intervention as governor of Arkansas, walked out of prison free.
The record is now replete with information about how Maurice Clemmons, the chief suspect in the killing of four police in Washington, who himself was gunned down by Seattle police early Tuesday morning, had his lengthy prison sentence commuted by Huckabee nine years ago.
As a result of this latest tragedy, Huckabee’s use of his commutation power, which he employed some 1,033 times during his 10 years as governor, is receiving fresh attention. Of course, the Clemmons case wasn’t the first time Huckabee steered into trouble after extending compassion to criminals, who, once freed from prison, returned to their old ways.
Eugene Fields, the four-time driving-while-intoxicated offender, had his six-year sentence commuted by Huckabee not long after Fields’ wife made large donations to the Republican Party of Arkansas. Fields later was arrested twice for DWI.
And then there was convicted rapist Wayne Dumond, who less than a year after being let out of prison on parole, raped and killed a Missouri woman. Huckabee’s involvement in that case became a flash point during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Found guilty in the 1980s of raping Ashley Stevens, a high-school cheerleader, Dumond argued that he was set up and that his prosecution came at the hands of then Gov. Bill Clinton’s political machine. Clinton is Stevens’ distant cousin.
By the mid 1990s, Clinton was in the White House and his supposed involvement in the Dumond case had fueled the imaginations of conspiracy theorists nationwide. Dumond’s wife, Dusty, eager to plead her husband’s case, searched for a sympathetic ear and found what she was looking for in Huckabee, who was the state’s lieutenant governor.
As governor, Huckabee advocated for the convicted rapist’s release. Former staff members, including one member of Huckabee’s legal team, said he left the clear impression after his first meeting with the Post Prison Transfer Board in 1996 that he wanted Dumond out of prison.
Remarkably, that same year, Huckabee wrote to Dumond informing him of his desire for him to be released from prison under the supervision of a parole officer.
But even as Dumond’s advocate, he left himself room to run for political cover should he need to. Ultimately Huckabee denied Dumond’s request for clemency, but only after the Post Prison Transfer Board informed the governor of its intention to grant Dumond parole.
Last year, when his critics questioned his support for Dumond’s release from prison Huckabee countered that he took no official action as governor on Dumond’s behalf. In fact, he claimed numerous times that if anyone deserved blame it was his predecessor, Democrat Jim Guy Tucker, who commuted Dumond’s original sentence.
But, according to Huckabee’s own dubious reasoning, shouldn’t he then bear the blame for Clemmons? After all, he commuted his sentence.
In a prepared statement, Huckabee attempted to spread blame by saying the criminal justice system failed.
No more obfuscation. This time Huckabee must accept responsibility for his actions.
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David J. Sanders writes twice weekly for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and is the host of Arkansas Education Television Network’s “Unconventional Wisdom.” His e-mail address is DavidJSanders@aol.com.
