In 1996, as a newly elected governor who had received strong support from the Christian right, Huckabee was under intense pressure from conservative activists to pardon Dumond or commute his sentence. The activists claimed that Dumond's initial imprisonment and various other travails were due to the fact that Ashley Stevens, the high school cheerleader he had raped, was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, and the daughter of a major Clinton campaign contributor.

After Dumond's release from prison in September 1999, he moved to Smithville, Missouri, where he raped and suffocated to death a 39-year-old woman named Carol Sue Shields. Dumond was subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison for that rape and murder.

But Dumond's arrest for those crimes in June 2001 came too late for 23-year-old Sara Andrasek of Platte County, Missouri. Dumond allegedly raped and murdered her just one day before his arrest for raping and murdering Shields. Prior to the attack, Andrasek and her husband had learned that she was pregnant with their first child.

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But the Times’ new reporting shows the extent to which Huckabee and a key aide were involved in the process to win Dumond’s release. It was a process marked by deviation from accepted parole practice and direct personal lobbying by the governor, in an apparently illegal and unrecorded closed-door meeting with the parole board (the informal name by which the Post Prison Transfer Board is known).

After Huckabee told the board, in executive session, that he believed Dumond got a “raw deal,” according to a board member who was there, and supported his release, board chairman Leroy Brownlee personally paved the way for Dumond’s release, according to board records and former members. During that time — from December 1996 to January 1997 — Brownlee regularly consulted with Butch Reeves, the governor’s prison liaison, on the status of his efforts, two state officials have told the Times.

The governor, his office and spokesman Rex Nelson were repeatedly contacted for a response to this article, but none was forthcoming. Brownlee also did not respond to phone calls, but the Post Prison Transfer Board responded in writing.

The Times has also learned that:
• Ermer Pondexter, a former member of the Post Prison Transfer Board, says she was persuaded by the parole board chairman Brownlee to vote for Dumond’s release and because she knew the governor supported it.

• The board did not allow its recording secretary to attend a closed session with the governor regarding Dumond, nor was the session taped, a departure from custom.

• Board chair Brownlee [2005 note: Brownless has since been reappointed to the Board by Huckabee] personally interviewed Dumond in prison and set in motion the reconsideration of the board’s August 1996 vote to refuse Dumond parole. Normally, inmates must wait a year after a decision for a new hearing. Thanks to Brownlee’s efforts, Dumond was granted a new parole hearing Jan. 16, 1997, just six weeks after his request for reconsideration. This time, the board voted to parole. Brownlee later was reappointed to the board by Huckabee.

• Dumond was transferred to the Tucker unit in December 1996, after his request for rehearing. Had he stayed at Varner, he could not have been scheduled for a new hearing before Jan. 20, 1997, Huckabee’s deadline to act on his announcement that he was considering commuting Dumond’s sentence. His transfer — which the Department of Corrections has explained in conflicting ways — allowed him to get on the Tucker hearing schedule, which let the board parole Dumond before Huckabee’s deadline — and thus take the heat for his release.
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You've got Michael Vick Huckabee. And now you've got Michael Dukakis Huckabee.

I should cotton to Huckabee. He's a real charmer, a pro-life traditionalist with a winning way and a sense of humor. His Christian faith informs his domestic policies, putting compassion and decency -- a concern for the littlest guy -- into his conservatism.

But there it ends. Some of Huckabee's foreign-policy and national-security pronouncements are fit only for the world of Sunday school. Close down Guantanamo, prohibit waterboarding, talk to our wildest enemies, end the administration's arrogant "bunker mentality" -- Republicans can get this kind of stuff at Democratic debates or on editorial pages. They don't need it from their candidate. One Kumbaya party is enough in the middle of a war.

In addition, Huckabee's crime-and-punishment record as governor makes Michael Dukakis look like Dirty Harry. And his shifty explanations of rapist Wayne Dumond's early release from prison -- and Dumond's later rape and murder of a 39-year-old woman -- have the smack of the original man from Hope: Bill Clinton.

Governor Clinton ignored pleas on behalf of DuMond at the same time that he was ignoring pleas on behalf of Rickey Ray Rector.

How would a President Huckabee handle presidential pardons? Like he did in Arkansas? Ask an Arkansan about the career criminal, Wayne Dumond, who was in an Arkansas prison for the 1985 rape of Forrest City, Arkansas, student, Ashley Stevens. According to the Arkansas Republican News Service blog (www.arragopwing.com), which compiled a comprehensive account of Huckabee’s actions in the matter, Huckabee pressured the parole board to release Dumond because, Huckabee thought, Dumond got a “raw deal”. With Huckabee apparently having few real facts into Dumond’s case or background, Dumond was released from prison, thanks in part to Governor Huckabee.

Dumond subsequently moved to Missouri where he was convicted of the rape and murder of Carole Sue Shields and became a suspect in other cases. Dumond died in a Missouri prison in 2005.
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Not if McCain should win. It could then be Disaster: Part 2. McCain is 71 years old, probably be 72 by the time he took office.

If he should die in office, Huckabee would be prez.

Huckabee could help win support from evangelicals, except for one big skeleton in his political closet: Wayne DuMond. Huckabee pardoned DuMond while governor of Arkansas. After securing his release, DuMond went on to sexually assault and murder a woman in Missouri. I think Huckabee has a better chance making his mark in TV.

In fact, I believe Huckabee is fundamentally naive about the nature of evil altogether, as evidenced by his pathetic record on clemency as governor of Arkansas.

During his tenure as governor, he issued more clemency than the six surrounding states--COMBINED! You may have heard about Wayne Dumond, the convicted rapist Huckabee worked to free (who then went on to rape and kill two women), but you may not have heard about some of the other heinous criminals he let go--many of whom went on to pursue their criminal careers after Huckabee let them out of prison early.