Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Conservatives are not exactly looking smart here....

....by attacking Mike Huckabee for commuting the sentence of Maurice Clemmons, murderer of four Washington police officers. Why?

He had been convicted to up to 108 years in prison for aggravated robbery, burglary, robbery and two counts of theft of property--crimes committed when he was 17. Now call me weird, but 108 years is usually a sentence given for forcible rape or first degree murder, not robbery and burglary. What Huckabee did was simply to commute part of the sentence (to an overall 48 years), making him eligible for parole in 11 years.

Which is, ahem, a typical sentence for burglary. So I don't fault Huckabee for setting the stage for his parole. I do, however, fault authorities for not taking firmer, "three strikes" kind of actions when it became clear that his crimes were not simply youthful sins--in 2001 and this year. Had they simply revoked the 2001 parole, he would have been in jail for another 36 years, plus a sentence for burglary.

And, ahem, four innocent victims of his crime spree would now be alive.

3 comments:

K-Rod said...

Unfortunately, when a judge sends a ute to prison to teach him a lesson, the kid learns a lot more of the wrong lessons from his cell mates.

This one was a bad apple and I agree the responsibility should be placed on the prison/parole authorities, not so much Huckabee.

Bike Bubba said...

Good point.....bring the rattan to American justice! People should associate crime with pain, not "three hots, a pot, and a cot."

pentamom said...

This is just another example of how political discourse is getting dumber on both right and left. Huckabee allowed a guy to be paroled, the guy did something bad on parole, ergo Huckabee's a loser and soft on crime. It doesn't matter what the LAW said or what the facts of the case are, it fits the meme that "being soft on crime is bad" and "commuting sentences is being soft on crime."

Nobody (on the national scene) argues from principle anymore, just from how things fit certain templates.