Huckabee and Pardons. Some Interesting Issues

The Houston Chronicle features a fantastic story (here) which discusses, among other things, Gov. Huckabee and the use of the pardon power. I also find that it touches on some interesting features of research on pardons. I have provided excerpts (below). My commentary follows.

In all, Huckabee cut prison sentences or granted pardons for more than 1,000 criminals, far more than either his immediate predecessors or governors in neighboring states. This did not happen by chance.

Driven by a religious belief in redemption and questions about the state's legal system, Huckabee paid close attention to clemency petitions, former aides said. He insisted on reviewing every single application, though they came in by the hundreds most months.

Two things. First, the assertion that Huckabee's clemency decisions were "driven" by "religious belief" demands evidence. It is campaign season and that is acceptable writing for PR machines, but not investigative reporting. So, where is the evidence of this? Are there public statements, letters, speeches, what? Of course, "paying close attention" constitutes no such evidence.

Second, given what we know about Huckabee's clemency decisions, what specific "religious belief" are we to think (guess) has guided him? For example, he pardoned very very few of the people that applied. What are we to make of this?

"He would take these files home with him to the governor's mansion," recalled Rex Nelson, Huckabee's communications director for nine years. "He would read them, study them. He took it very seriously, the political consequences be damned."

Actually, spending all this time on clemency applications might be a better indicator that he WAS considering the political consequences of his decision making!

Most of Huckabee's clemency decisions were unremarkable;

As would be the case for most governors, and presidents for that matter

As his reputation for granting clemency spread, applications surged. "We had tons of them," said Cory Cox, who worked for several years as Huckabee's aide in charge of clemency matters. "People, they'd call and say, 'Please, let the governor
look at this. We don't know who the next governor is going to be.' "

This raises an interesting point that has not been emphasized to date. Clemency decisions do have an impact on clemency applications. During the Reagan / Bush administrations, for example, there was a decline in pardons. There followed a steady decline in applications. When a new, Democratic president stepped in (Bill Clinton), applications sky-rocketed. There was very clearly an expectation that there might be change in policy. In sum, clemency applications do not simply rise each year as a reflection of rising crime rates or incarceration figures. It is more complex than that.

So, we have heard that Huckabee had thousands and thousands of applications for clemency. We have also heard that Romney had a couple of hundred. The question now is this: how many of Huckabee's applications were in response to his decision making?

By every account, Huckabee's approach to clemency was heavily influenced by his religious beliefs. As John Wesley Hall, a Little Rock defense lawyer who filed numerous clemency petitions with the Huckabee administration, put it: "He's a Baptist preacher who believes in redemption and second chances."

This still falls way short of anything like the kind of evidence that I call for above. Baptist ministers are, if anything, more popularly known for hell-fire-and-damnation style preaching. Somewhat ironically, John Wesley Hall seems to be confusing Baptists with United Methodists. Furthermore, I know of no Protestant denomination which does not predicate mercy upon repentance. How is this for a religious principle: at least two witnesses per assertion!

Some Arkansas prosecutors argue that Huckabee's clemency record reveals a dangerous gullibility about human nature, particularly when it comes to claims of religious conversion. It raises, they say, the basic question of judgment, the precise question one of Huckabee's rivals for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney, has raised anew in his Iowa campaign.

Some very interesting dynamics going on here. One can hardly help notice that many who are otherwise critical of religion and all that is religious in nature will point to the religious "conversion" of a prisoner in arguing 1) against the death penalty 2) against the criminal justice system 3) in the style of racial politics or 4) in partisan animosity. Religion can be a very useful tool indeed.

There were several other cases of convicts who won clemency from Huckabee and then went on to commit more crimes

"Several other cases?" Are you kidding me? Given the attention this story has gotten and the effort that the writer has put into it, how can we possibly use this kind of language? Is there no one with statistics on the matter? We have to say "several?"