Monday, December 10, 2007

Mike, King of Clemency, Why parole a monster like Green?


Garrick Feldman at the ArkansasLeader.com wrote the story that has now spreading across the web.

A prominent Fred Thomas fan, Tommy Oliver, broke the story first in comments on this thread. Oliver posted references to Huck's clemency abuses here, here, and here. Then, Jeff Fuller at Iowans for Romney found it.

The first several paragraphs at the Leader:

Gov. Huckabee probably never read the confession of a demented killer named Glen Green before he made the monster eligible for parole.

Green's confession is so depraved, its sadistic details so scary that no sane, responsible adult would consider him for parole.

If the governor didn't read the confession, he is guilty of dereliction of duty.

But if he read the confession and still considers Green deserving of parole, he's certainly unfit to hold office. Who would free a madman who beat an 18-year-old woman with Chinese martial-arts sticks, raped her as she barely clung to life, ran over her with his car, then dumped her in the bayou, her hand reaching up, as if begging for mercy?

I don't know how Huckabee can survive this story. He's just gotta go down. This man is not fit for public office.

We're publishing the gruesome picture of Green's victim on the front page because we believe her hand is reaching up to demand justice.

In usual fashion, Huckabee's office didn't even contact the victim's family about the clemency.

Although he's required to by the Constitution, the governor, as is his custom, won't say why he granted clemency to this crazed killer (over the unanimous objections of the Post-Prison Transfer Board).

Huckabee apparently listened to Green's minister (and a friend of the governor), who thinks the murder was an accident and Green was forced to confess.

What is Huckabee doing? Why are these ministers behind all these clemencies?
Huck repeatedly allowed close religious associates to exert an awful lot of influence in these clemency cases.

According to Iowans for Romney:

You probably saw my post about the fact that rapist turned murderer Wayne Dumond was paroled largely because Huckabee and Dumond's pastor believed that he had been "Born Again."

I repeat, this is not sound judgment. Gotta separate your concept of forgiveness from real-world justice.

In Jeff Fuller's story comment section, David Kim contrasts Leniency Mike's clemency-related actions with Romney's activities while Governor of Massachusetts:

What many well-intentioned Christians don't realize is that ultimately forgiveness is between God and the transgressor and what's at stake is eternity.

To let a murderer/rapist go free in the name of Christ under the principle of "forgiveness" is a travesty. The Governor does not have the right to "forgive" a violent felon and whether they spend their life behind bars or in the outside world is frankly irrelevant to the question of salvation.

I am very fearful of a man who gets these sorts of concepts confused. Huckabee's judgement is completely suspect.

Romney rejected all requests for clemency while governor (over 100 of them). That is the right approach unless there is proof positive evidence of wrongful conviction (i.e. the guy didn't do it). For jailhouse conversions and being "born again" we should rejoice for the man's soul and he should be thankful that he can serve out the rest of his term at peace with himself. Keeping him in prison won't keep him out of heaven.

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