Maurice Clemmons

Watch: Huckabee Does Clemmons Damage Control On O'Reilly Factor

Justin Elliott | December 1, 2009, 10:48AM

Talking to a friendly Bill O'Reilly on Fox last night, Mike Huckabee said he was responsible for commuting the sentence of Maurice Clemmons, the suspect in the killings of four Washington State police who was shot to death this morning.

"It's not something that I'm happy about at this particular moment," said the former Arkansas governor, who is taking heat for the 2000 decision from both left and right.

We took a close look at Clemmons' route through the criminal justice system, and Huckabee's role, in this post yesterday.

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Arlen Specter

Specter: Holder Could Be Another Gonzo

Zachary Roth | January 6, 2009, 6:24PM

It doesn't get harsher than that.

In a floor speech today, Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary committee, suggested that Eric Holder, Barack Obama's nominee for Attorney General, might follow in the footsteps of ... Alberto Gonzales!

The Washington Independent reports that Specter cited several of the attacks that we've heard from GOPers since Holder's nomination was announced -- including the Al Gore "campaign finance violations" of 1996, the Elian Gonzalez case, and the last-minute pardon of Marc Rich.

Then Specter really hit below the belt, declaring:

After our recent experience with Attorney General Gonzales, it is imperative that the Attorney General undertake and effectuate that responsibility of independence. Mr. Gonzales left office accused of politicizing the Justice Department, failing to restrain Executive overreaching, and being less than forthcoming with Congress ... I am convinced that many of Attorney General Gonzales' missteps were caused by his eagerness to please the White House. Similarly, when Mr. Holder was serving as DAG to President Clinton, some of his actions raised concerns about his ability to maintain his independence from the president.

Specter concluded:

I am prepared to give Mr. Holder a full opportunity to explain his past actions and convince the Committee and the Senate that his record warrants confirmation.

As we noted last month, Specter has already tried to throw a hitch into the Holder nomination, ultimately prevailing on Judiciary chair Pat Leahy to postpone Holder's confirmation hearings, citing the need to scrutinize Holder's record -- particularly on the Rich pardon -- more closely.

But comparing Holder to Gonzales surely goes too far.

George Bush

Bush Clemency Followed Call From Iowa Governor

Zachary Roth | January 2, 2009, 4:34PM

The New York Times has gone through President Bush's latest round of pardons and commutations, issued on December 23rd, and found some interesting new nuggets.

We already knew about the case of Isaac Toussie, the New York real estate crook whose pardon was revoked after it emerged that his father was a major Bush donor.

But the Times adds to that the story of Reed Prior, an Iowan serving a life sentence for a drug conviction.

Prior's previous applications for clemency, including one filed as recently as December 2007, were rejected. But this year, Prior's lawyer asked Iowa governor Chet Culver (whose wife he happened to know) to call White House counsel Fred Fielding and schedule a meeting about the application. Culver did so. After meeting with Prior's lawyer, Fielding recommended granting the application, which President Bush then did.

And here's another case of what looks like special treatment:

Alan S. Maiss, once president of Bally Gaming Inc., was convicted in 1995 in a case related to a video-poker scandal in Louisiana. In seeking a pardon, Mr. Maiss was represented by H. Christopher Bartolomucci, an associate White House counsel from 2001 to 2003.

Mr. Maiss applied on Dec. 26, 2007, far later than most of the other pardon recipients. A Justice Department spokeswoman, Laura Sweeney, said Mr. Maiss did not get through quickly because of special treatment. Ms. Sweeney noted that two others who were granted pardons in December had applied recently -- in August 2007 and February 2008.

But Douglas A. Berman, a criminal law professor at Ohio State University, and a clemency consultant, said "there's no doubt" that Mr. Maiss had received fast-track treatment.

Mr. Bartolomucci, who has several other clemency clients, said he visited the White House in August 2008, "hand-delivered the materials that had already gone to the Justice Department," and "took a few minutes" to talk with the associate counsel who handles pardons, Kenneth Lee, about Mr. Maiss's case.

"His application was granted because of its considerable merits," Mr. Bartolomucci said.

Leaving aside the merits or lack thereof of these particular cases, the larger problem here is the simple fact that these backdoor routes aren't open to the great majority of people.

Karen Orehowsky, described as a volunteer clemency consultant who advised Mr. Prior's commutation team, tells the Times:

It takes a 'Hail Mary' from people who have a lot of connections and who are willing to put their neck out for people they care about, and it's unfair to people who don't have those connections.

Seems about right.