Who failed whom?

During the last presidential primary season, we wrote extensively about Mike Huckabee’s excessive use of his power, as governor of Arkansas, to issue pardons and commutations, and his role in influencing the parole process. In one particularly egregious instance, Huckabee worked behind the scenes in favor of releasing on parole a convicted rapist who, once free, raped and murdered a woman in Missouri.
Now we learn that Maurice Clemmons, accused of the execution-style murder of four police officers in Washington state, had a lengthy jail term commuted by Huckabee in 2000. Clemons had served only 11 years of a 95-year prison sentence.
The Huckabee camp is trying to pass this off as failure of “the system” in both Arkansas and Washington. But my friend Bill Otis, a former prosecutor, observes that the “system” had Clemmons behind bars for the duration until Huckabee let him out.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses