Seattle police murders will influence JLWOP Supreme Court decision

From what I’ve read, Charles Lane at The Washington Post was the first to explicitly point it out, but the implication has been everywhere:

Maurice Clemmons, the primary suspect in the murder of four Seattle police officers earlier this week, should have been in prison for life, serving a 108-year sentence for crimes he committed before he turned 18. But Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, let him out after 11 years because he was still a juvenile when he committed those crimes.

Lane’s appraisal of the situation — and it’s relevance in the two Supreme Court cases currently being deliberated — is very good. And his closing thoughts are perhaps the most sobering elements:

Such matters as how the public might react if the justices were seen to take the side of a teenage career criminal, just after a former teenage criminal got back on the street and allegedly slaughtered four police officers in cold blood, do not enter into their decisions. Still, I can’t help thinking that, after the murder of the four cops, the chances that Terrance Graham is going to win his case just got a little bit slimmer.

Related articles

• Mike Huckabee In the Eye of a Storm (mydd.com)
• Huckabee’s office releases statement about police killings (seattlepi.com)
• Man wanted for shooting police officers was granted clemency by Mike Huckabee (telegraph.co.uk)