Criminal Justice

Joe Conason has a very enlightening piece up about Mike Huckabee and his addiction to letting criminals walk free. In the article Conason points out something very interesting, yet missed in this debate:

Huckabee has proudly declared on many occasions that he disdains the separation of church and state, insisting that his strict Baptist piety should serve as the bedrock of public policy. Nowhere in his record as governor was the influence of religious zeal felt more heavily than in the distribution of pardons and commutations, as his own explanations have indicated.

Religion clouded Huckabee’s judgment, which resulted in the release of a record number of prisoners, including Maurice Clemmons. This is the very reason why we should chose leaders based upon their performance, instead of how many times they pray. Would Jesus let someone like Clemmons walk free to constantly repeat the violent crimes he had done all his life? I highly doubt it.

The next time someone says they will use their religious views to lead our nation, we now only have to point to the actions of Huckabee to argue against them.

Maurice Clemmons wasn’t the first person that Huckabee released from Prison, only to have them go out and continue a life of crime. Wayne Dumond was a rapist who Huckabee released, only to go out and rape and kill a woman shortly after being freed:

New sources, including an advisor to Gov. Mike Huckabee, have told the Arkansas Times that Huckabee and a senior member of his staff exerted behind-the-scenes influence to bring about the parole of rapist Wayne Dumond, who Missouri authorities say raped and killed a woman there shortly after his parole.

Huckabee has denied a role in Dumond’s release, which has become an issue in his race for re-election against Democrat Jimmie Lou Fisher. Fisher says Huckabee’s advocacy of Dumond’s freedom, plus other acts of executive clemency, exhibit poor judgment. In response, Huckabee has shifted responsibility for Dumond’s release to others, claiming former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker made Dumond eligible for parole and saying the Post Prison Transfer Board made the decision on its own to free Dumond.

Again – Huckabee denies any wrongdoing on his part. This is beyond the pale, and for this man to be the GOP’s front runner for 2012 spells nothing but trouble for the opposition party.

Perhaps what should happen now is that the family of the four officers murdered file suit against Huckabee. It’s hard to sue an official acting in an official capacity, but it should be done and the courts should not give Huckabee any leniency for acting as governor. It’s time to show governors that if they want to release people for prison then their actions can have consequence. Maurice Clemmons and Wayne Dumond weren’t petty criminals – they were extremely violent. That was the case when Huckabee let them go and they went on to prove it again.

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The man wanted for the slaying of four Washington State police officers should have been behind bars, but he wasn’t. Mike Huckabee, then the governor of Arkansas, decided to let the guy out of jail – a criminal with a very violent history. In a statement released by Huckabee, he decides to blame everyone else:

Should he be found to be responsible for this horrible tragedy, it will be the result of a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington State. He was recommended for and received a commutation of his original sentence from 1990, this commutation made him parole eligible and he was then paroled by the parole board once they determined he met the conditions at that time. He was arrested later for parole violation and taken back to prison to serve his full term, but prosecutors dropped the charges that would have held him. It appears that he has continued to have a string of criminal and psychotic behavior but was not kept incarcerated by either state. This is a horrible and tragic event and if found and convicted the offender should be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Our thoughts and prayers are and should be with the families of those honorable, brave, and heroic police officers.

Let’s look at exactly what happened:

Maurice Clemmons received a 35-year sentence in the early 1990s for armed robbery and theft. His sentence was commuted in May 2000, and he was let out three months later.

The following March, Clem-mons committed two armed robberies and other crimes and was sentenced to 10 years. You'd think they'd keep him locked up after that, but no: He was paroled last March and is now wanted for aggravated robbery.

Huckabee commuted his sentence in 2000, then the parole board, which was appointed by Huckabee, let him back out in 2003 – only 3 years after committing two more armed robberies.

So Huckabee was directly involved in this case, yet his actions have no consequence? This makes Willie Horton seem like nothing. Dukakis wasn’t directly involved in the release of Horton, he just supported the furlough program that Horton got released through. The case of Clemmons saw direct intervention by Huckabee, which ultimately lead to his release. Even the wingnuts are calling this Huckabee’s “Willie Horton Moment”, but the evidence against Huckabee is much worse than it ever was against Dukakis, given Huckabee’s direct involvement in the case.

Image by caribb via Flickr

The New York Times is reporting on a new alliance forming against the Justice Department and criminalization over all in our country. That alliance is the right and left.

Generally the right has always supported the aggressive position of the federal government when it comes to prosecuting crimes, but given numerous cases heading to the Supreme Court over the next few months that involve drugs, corruption and sex, the right is starting to view the government as overreaching their bounds.

So how strong is this alliance becoming? Well Edwin Meese, the Attorney General under Reagan, once called the ACLU the criminal “lobby”. Today he is willing to join forces with the ACLU to stop this abundance of prosecutions. That is an alliance most of us thought we would never see.

Even more interesting is the groups that are joining together. The article points out that groups like the Heritage Foundation, CATO Institute, Federalist Society and the ACLU are all joining forces to fight this onslaught of overcriminalization.

I’m sure most have seen lists or websites highlighting idiotic laws. If not here is a great site. Meese points out some of these laws like “giving a false weather report” and says that our nation is actually prosecuting people for this. What an incredible waste of time and resources. With our Justice Department expending themselves on silly laws like this, it’s no wonder that terrorists and major criminals slip through the system.

Then we get to the issue of prisons:

Some religious groups object to prison policies that appear to ignore the possibility of rehabilitation and redemption, and fiscal conservatives are concerned about the cost of maintaining the world’s largest prison population.

It is no accident that the United States has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. We have gotten to the point that anyone can be thrown in jail, and once released their options are so slim that they end up becoming repeat offenders. We have no rehabilitation in our prison system and the extremely high number of repeat offenders increases population and costs. Spending more on rehabilitation would decrease costs and make all sides happy.

Seeing a unifying debate like this is a good sign in our split nation. It’s time for America to address the problem of our prison population and ridiculous prosecutions. Hopefully all these diverse groups coming together can do just that – force change in our government. It is a government by the people, and we have people for every corner of our country now screaming for change. It’s also a good time for Jim Webb to start pushing his legislation to redo our criminal system.

Via Sullivan comes this very interesting map:

I would be happy to see us become a green colored nation, but wouldn’t mind becoming blue either. Of course we need more than an abolishment of the death penalty; we also need an entire overhaul of our justice system. When it comes to per populace incarceration rates, we beat everyone. This country has outlawed too many things and that weakens us as a nation. Hopefully we will see a leader someday ready to really address that.

Dave Kurtz has a very interesting post up at TPM asking exactly what Senator Craig did wrong.

We've had lots of back and forth discussion here internally about what conduct by Sen. Craig in that Minneapolis airport restroom was actually illegal. We've posted the arrest report, so take a look and reach your own conclusions.

Leering stares, foot tapping, a lingering presence. Are any of those, even taken together, what most reasonable people would call criminal? Is it because they happened in a bathroom? God knows they happen every night in bars and other public spaces, among gays and straights.

Please take a moment and read the entire post. I have been trying to wrap my brain around this very question.

The charges do seem very far fetched, and I highly doubt they would have stuck if Senator Craig would have decided to fight them. The problem is he knew what he was planning on doing and in turn pleaded to the charges. I got a funny feeling this decision was made by him in hopes of saving public embarrassment, a plan that did not pan out how he wanted.

So a man soliciting sex from another man in a restroom is worthy of a sting operation. Does the same apply if a man solicits sex from a woman, or vice a versa? It appears that this case really exposes the hypocrisy of our legal system and those charged with enforcing it.

This makes me think more of the To Catch A Predator series on NBC. We see people getting arrested on national television who are supposed to be soliciting sex from minors. The problem is that they really aren't committing crimes, instead they are "thinking about it". Some states do have laws that you can not engage in sexual discussion with a minor online, but in a world of cyber anonymity, how does one know who they are really talking to? Chat services such as Yahoo stand strong behind their privacy agreements, and that opens up the possibility of someone engaging in some dirty talk with a person who says they are 18, but in fact are only 13.

Last year we saw one of these cases unravel in the national spotlight. Mark Foley was a member of the U.S. Congress and engaged in sexual discussion online with minors. The problem is that Mark Foley may not even face charges for what he did. He engaged in the exact same behavior that some of the people arrested on To Catch A Predator did, and those people are sentenced for their crimes.

I agree that there should be different levels of punishment for common citizens and members of our government, but I don't think the current standards should apply. Instead when a member of Senate or Congress gets convicted of a crime, they should face stiffer penalties. They not only committed a crime against their victim, but also committed a crime against the people they represent. Our leaders are supposed to lead, and by that I mean by example. That must be considered in all sentencing.

So perhaps Senator Craig did deserve getting busted, as he should lead by a higher standard than most (a standard which he actually campaigned on), but the same must now face Mark Foley. Claiming that investigators can not look at Congressional computers due to privacy concerns can not be the reason to halt justice. In this new world that George Bush has created of extreme executive privilege and secrecy for those of power, we need to re-examine if this is what our country stands for. If a crime is suspected then there should be no denying investigators access to possible data if they can obtain a legal warrant. This includes the administrative and executive branch.

Of course this is also a product of our national system of justice and the fact that it all lies under the executive branch. Perhaps it is time to look at how much we cherish living in a country where we are supposed to have a balanced system of justice and perhaps divide the enforcement of that justice more equally amongst all three branches.