Mike Dukakabee — Pardoning Machine

Mike Huckabee issued more commutations and pardons than all of the six states neighboring to Arkansas combined.

He has set loose more convicts than all of his recent predecessors combined.  More than 10 times the number that Bill Clinton did during a 10-year period from 1983 to 1992.

When prosecutors in Arkansas put forth vocal opposition to Huckabee’s pattern of granting clemency to violent criminals and making “murderers, armed robbers and rapists, who often return to a life of crime after they’re freed” eligible for parole, Huckabee attacked the prosecutors.

Furthermore, Huckabee has a record of pardoning criminals without letting law-enforcement officials or victims’ families know why he’s doing it as is required by law.

Perhaps most troubling of all is this admission from Huckabee:

He wouldn’t meet with victims’ families and didn’t bother telling them about pending clemencies. After he was forced to withdraw his offer of clemency to Glen Green – the former Air Force sergeant who beat his own pregnant wife, then brutally murdered a teenager and dumped her body into the Twin Prairie Bayou – Huckabee pretty much admitted he knew nothing about the case. As is his custom, he had listened to a fellow preacher who pushed for Green’s release knowing about as much about the killing as the governor did.

So, was Huckabee letting religion influence his decisions on commutations and pardons? If Mitt Romney has to explain the role that religion plays in his life, shouldn’t Mike Huckabee be asked a similar question when evidence like this surfaces?