I try to be equitable in my comments about our elected officials. I scour the printed records to glean just any small sliver of exemplary conduct or decision making by them. (Yes, Shirley, that does consume a considerable amount of the day.)
Well it seems that Governor Beebe wins a well deserved ‘KUDO’ for his refusing to follow the Huckabee practice of giving clemency to an incarcerated felon at his daily luncheon. OK a gross exaggeration. Huckabee only averaged about 1 clemency every three weeks over his ten-year term.
In fact, since becoming governor in 2007, Beebe has given only ONE felon clemency despite the Parole Board sending him 250 ‘let ‘em go free’ recommendations. (Not to be confused with Parole recommendations, see below). Without reviewing the facts of that specific case with you, The Beebe’s restraint screams of good solid decision making in doling out this executive power privilege. For a Democrat to demonstrate such restraint almost makes me proud to be one, except this is an exceptional case, not the ordinary execution normally fostered on the citizens. Still, Governor Beebe, KUDOS to you for keepin’ ‘em behind bars!
Just to educate us all, an incarcerated felon has 4 options to exit prison: 1. do the full time; 2. be pardoned; 3. be paroled; and 4. receive clemency. A parole is the release of a prisoner prior to the full term of his sentence based on some legal lapsed time plus good behavior, etc. They have to report to a parole officer and do stuff. A pardon/clemency releases the felon from prison with no further obligations. Clemency releases the felon for no good reason other than some dude has to power and authority to grant it and the felon gets out of jail free, even gets back the right to vote and carry firearms. The conviction is even ‘expunged’ which allows me to lawfully, but not honestly, state that I’ve never been convicted of a felony. (These things get confusing. For example, if the record is ‘expunged’ upon clemency; is the record ‘punged’ upon conviction?)
How does all this work, you ask? Well for example, say a felon has a friend named Jim Hill who asked the Governor to consider giving a prisoner named Robbie Brooks clemency. If Mr. Hill were a political colleague of the governor’s and investigation proved that clemency was warranted under some non specific set of rules, unwritten guidelines, or personal feelings, then Robbie could be ‘Clemenced’. (Not certain that that’s a word, but what is the past tense of receiving clemency?)
In 2000 Huckabee commuted Maurice Clemmons sentence, who was later sent back to prison, even later paroled by Huckabee and went up to Washington where he shot and killed 4 police officers. So you can see the advantage of not letting these folks out of prison on a wholesale basis.
But I don’t want you to give you the idea that Governor Beebe is a hard cased, red necked conservative, totally unredeemable and outside the acceptable parameters of the New Democratic Party. He sponsored and got the Legislature to pass a new law that allows a non-violent felon to skip jail alltogether and go straight back out on the streets. Sort of negates the need for a bunch of that clemency stuff in the future. Until then he has granted 397 pardons, at the rate of about one every three days or so. Still, to date none of those have gone up to Washington and killed anyone. I think that he’s selecting a better class of felon than Huckabee.
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