If only the rest of us could use nepotism to our advantage like this:
Outgoing Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe said on Wednesday that he will pardon his son for a felony drug conviction, local media reported. Beebe … said he would pardon his son Kyle, now 34, for his 2003 felony conviction of marijuana possession with intent to deliver, local broadcaster KATV said. “Kids, when they’re young, do stupid stuff. He was no different,” Beebe told KATV in an interview published online. “If they’ve straightened up, to get their life back on track and have a second chance, so this is no different. It’s different because it’s my son.”
That’s just terrific for Gov. Beebe’s son. People change and grow up, right? Now maybe we can look into the more than 50 percent of inmates who are in overcrowded prisons these days for drug offenses. We’re sure they’d be out in a jiffy if their parents were government officials.
Team Blackness also discussed the KKK’s threat to use “lethal force” against Ferguson “terrorists,” the drunk girl viral video hoax, and the insane statistics on civilian killings by police in Brazil.
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shelley
Beebe’s Kids
Dupe70
I’m a Beebe-liever
Tone In DC
Funny how this “tough on crime” shit is subjective when the perp is progeny of a pol.
Also, too…remember that wealthy kid that the judge would not imprison?
cnn.com/2014/02/05/us/texas-affluenza-teen/
Amir Khalid
I see that it was the state parole board that recommended the pardon for Kyle Beebe, so presumably that action in itself is on the up and up. All the same, I’m surprised that Governor Beebe doesn’t get (or chose to ignore) the optics of issuing a pardon to his own son. He should have stepped aside in this matter, and left it to the Lieutenant Governor or something.
Belafon
@Tone In DC: The affluenza kid was in the news this morning here in Dallas. He’s being moved to a new facility.
Tommy
Amazing. There might have been, might have been a time in my life I sold drugs to people. My parents affluent, would have said do the crime do the time. Of course they would have helped, with a lawyer and anything they could, but I could never for the life of me envision a world if my mom or dad was governor they’d pardon me for a crime. Never. Not in a million years!
hamletta
To be fair, Beebe also pardoned 700 other people with similar charges.
CONGRATULATIONS!
This is only OK if he pardons every single marijuana offender (with intent to distribute, no less) who was 24 or under at time of conviction in the state. Pardons to include those who’ve already served their sentences and still have the conviction on their records.
What, he is not? Well, then, he’s a hypocritical asshole who’s using his office to enrich himself and his family.
@hamletta: I no longer have any interest in being “fair” to these people at all. What it gets you is a kick in the crotch, followed by even more pols misusing their offices like this.
Villago Delenda Est
This stinks to high heaven. It’s always different, the rules everyone else must follow don’t apply to my kids because I’m the governor.
Right. Sure.
If his son is to be pardoned, his successor should do it, not him.
Well, I guess he is following the old Bush Crime Family example: pardon all your buddies who are about to flip on you before they can flip.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tone In DC: In a just universe, this piece of shit and his worthless parents would all be executed.
This is not a just universe.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Villago Delenda Est: Word.
C.V. Danes
Meet the new aristocracy, same as the old aristocracy.
cckids
@hamletta: That’s what I was wondering. If it was just his kid? Hell no. As part of a group that size, for minor drug violations? Go for it.
The lifetime punitive effects of drug sentencing are ridiculous.
Tone In DC
@Villago Delenda Est:
Me, I want ’em incarcerated. Inside, like all of the other people (mostly non-violent drug offenders) these law-and-order assholes have so gleefully put away. And kept those offenders in there, with these hanging judges and the federal mandatory sentencing guidelines.
All of this, in a country where someone can get 10-20 years for petty theft.
Tone In DC
@Villago Delenda Est:
Somewhere, Irving Libby is smiling.
Found guilty on four felony counts, and ol’ Scooter was out in under two years.
FlipYrWhig
@Tone In DC: Is Mike Beebe a law and order asshole?
kwAwk
There sure are a lot of angry people around here.
I agree with the person who said it before. Rachel Maddow did a good run down of this last night showing how Beebe pardoned over 700 other people before he got to his son. And that is in a small state like Arkansas.
Tone In DC
@FlipYrWhig:
The state of Arkansas apparently is, even if Beebe may not be. Their incarceration rate is number eight in the country.
Admittedly, I see some Confederacy state mentioned in a crime related article, I see red these days.
Speaking of Confederate states, this incarceration list I linked to has quite a few of those CSAers in the top 10.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_incarceration_rate
Buddy H
@Villago Delenda Est:
In a just universe, this piece of shit and his worthless parents would all be executed.
Uh, sorry, not in my country.
Maybe you’d be more comfortable someplace else.
FlipYrWhig
@Tone In DC: I know nothing of Arkansas (though it is my ancestral homeland) but I’m wary of tearing down a guy who’s been one of the most popular Democratic governors in the country.
japa21
I would be curious to know how many governors have pardoned as many felons as Beebe has. And I say that in terms of not raw numbers, though even that would be interesting, but as percent of those who would be eligible. Also note that this does not have any impact in terms of any punishment being lessened as the sentence issued has already been finished.
Tree With Water
If a governor went nuts and pardoned hundreds or even thousands of prisoners for arbitrary reasons of his/her own, would it stand?
Suzanne
I think this is awesome. Let all the weed users and dealers out. The headline is sensationalistic. He pardoned a lot of people, not just his kid. I wish more governors would get in on this.
Tone In DC
This article would be truly disgusting if the governor and son were named Brewer, Scott, Walker, Brownback, Snyder or Christie.
As for the actual perp and his enabling father… I hope Mickey pardons 700 more. Don’t get me started on the kid.
MPAVictoria
I would do the same thing if it were my son. So I can’t really judge him.
Helen
@Tone In DC:
Wrong. Scooter served exactly zero minutes in jail. Bush pardoned him (or, really, commuted his sentence because it was “too harsh” ) before Scooter went in.
Tone In DC
@Helen:
Hmph. It’s possible that Irving never actually saw the inside of a cell. IIRC, he was inside for a minute (a few weeks, if not longer).
gvg
Such minor crimes are the reason prisons are too full. He pardoned a lot of others before and he only signed a standard parole board proposal. No problem to me. Shame he doesn’t have the power to make the laws more sane in the first place.
Amir-I have never heard of a Lt. Gov pardon. I don’t think that possibility exists. It’s Govenors and the president only. He cannot delegate that responsibility. I am not a lawyer and the state laws do differ so it’s possible but I don’t think so.
I had read of this earlier and I think he has been out and working and behaving well for years so this is just rewarding good behavior anyway. I think it improves his job prospects though. That in fact is one reason its so hard for convicts to not return to prison. Society doesn’t give 2nd chances. It takes a certain amount of courage for any govenor to pardon anyone as they get unfairly held responsible for any future problems so it’s easier but wrong to just be “tough” on crime.
If this was one of just a few pardons, I’d think differently.
drkrick
@Tree With Water:
The Presidential pardon power is unlimited. As I understand it, that’s true of most if not all governors as well. The worst you can do is not vote for them the next time they run for something.
EDITED TO ADD: If they got caught selling pardons it would be possible to prosecute the pardoner, but even then I don’t think the pardon itself could be rescinded.
bago
@Villago Delenda Est: So, is this just universe in Singapore or Saudi Arabia?
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: Doubt that would have mattered. Look at how far this story travels without the context.
Arkansas governors and questionable pardons is nothing new. Not saying this is questionable in actuality.
But why doesn’t Arkansas just reform their laws instead of relying on appeal-to-the-King logic which is all the governor’s pardon crap is, anyway?
They shouldn’t be imprisoning people for low level drug offenses and the pardon board should be empowered to pardon or not without interference or overruling by the state executive.
Taking that away from the gov would also get rid of the issue of trusties getting pardoned because. Because. Why are trusties working on the governor’s mansion anyway? Slave labor anybody? The Prime Minister of the UK doesn’t live in a fucking mansion on an estate kept up by prisoners of the state paid substantially below minimum wage.
Democracy my ass.
Amir Khalid
@gvg:
When a governor recuses himself n a matter before him due to a personal interest, who takes over? There must be someone in the system who can do it.
Another Holocene Human
@drkrick: And Clinton (former Arkansas governor, coincidence?) was accused of doing just that, selling Presidential pardons to connected donors.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: THE PARDON BOARD SHOULD BE EMPOWERED AND SOLELY EMPOWERED TO GRANT PARDONS.
Not the governor, lieutenant governor, state’s attorney general …
maybe the governor grants pardons so they take the political heat but it also gives them too much power
like when Hucksterbee pardoned his “trusties”
no one human being has THAT MUCH DISCERNMENT that’s why there’s a pardon BOARD in the first fucking place JESUS
just like a parole fucking board
goddamnit
Another Holocene Human
Governors in the US stem from the practice of colonial governors over the US colonies who were appointed and served at the pleasure of the King of England (which is why they tended to be upper crust Tory asshats that nobody liked or respected who was born in the Americas, and trust me the disrespect was mutual).
Governors are quite simply regal avatars, kingly vicars. As such, they were invested with kingly powers.
Also, a lot of the English legal system we inherited in most states is outdated crap although given Louisiana I can’t say the Napoleonic Code has really acquitted itself much better. Highest murder rate in the USA, considerably higher than Texas which I suspect has a higher homicide clearance rate. Way to go French legal system/American hybrid/endemic corruption + Southern disinvestment in gubmint.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@bago: Don’t worry. Villago is determined to prove that violent rhetoric is not the province of the right only.
Another Holocene Human
If you want to be terrified read about those local petty law courts staffed by Justices of the Peace in upstate New York … horror story … reformers have tried to abolish them for over a hundred years … seriously, hair curling horrible.
Hobbes
While it could be argued that the parole* board may be more inclined to recommend a pardon for the governor’s son than for others, especially if they have just had a break, I don’t see any problem with the governor issuing this pardon along with hundreds of other pardons.
*Edit: or pardon board, whoever makes the recommendation.
Amir Khalid
@Another Holocene Human:
Does France, the birthplace of the Napoleonic Code, have a similarly high murder rate? If not, as I suspect, one couldn’t really blame the Code for the situation in Louisiana.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: Well, there’s the problem in a nutshell, innit? I mean France could have a lower crime rate despite having a shitty Southern European level ca-fuck-strophe of a criminal justice system because of some completely different factors that it is way way different from than North America. It would be really hard to argue that Louisiana has less, culturally, in common with Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas than France does with Britain, France and Britain sharing enviably low violent crime rates from our US perspective.
MS, AL, TX, and LA all have horrible murder rates, but LA takes the cake by far and they just seem recently to have a shitty track record catching criminals, witness the one, no two, no no maybe it was three Baton Rouge serial killers … and that was during the GWB administration, not the 1980s or something.
Eric U.
11 years for intent to distribute pot is a long time. Although in this kid’s case, it probably was reduced somehow, probably from a life sentence. Just guessing, of course, because I can’t be bothered to check. In any event, I don’t think he should still be in prison.
Origuy
@Amir Khalid: IANAL, but as I understand it, and as Wikipedia states, Louisiana criminal law is based on English common law as it is in the other 49. Civil and family law are where the Napoleonic Code retains its influences.
Edit: Stanley Kowalski, Esq. notwithstanding
dance around in your bones
Ok, in my opinion this type of ‘crime’ should be treated as a health problem. Addiction, selling pot for money (prolly ’cause you can’t get a regular fucking job for $10 an hour) and etc.
Treat it like a health problem, and we would empty out the jails like nobody’s business.
In My Never So Humble Opinion.
dance around in your bones
Also, I am gonna check out for a while because my hip fucking HURTS and I can’t take the added aggravation.
I’m gonna go back to Fry and Laurie or Blackadder so I can laugh, at least.
Calouste
@drkrick:
One of the things where America is still stuck in the 18th century while the rest of the world moved on.
Omnes Omnibus
@Calouste:
Really? Nearly unlimited clemency power entrusted to the head of state seems pretty common.
SRW1
Hm, the cynic in me is torn about this 700:1 hostage exchange ratio. After all, it is 700 who benefitted.
I guess dropping the stupid laws about possession and ‘intent to sell’ was out of the question.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Another Holocene Human: And yet, here we are, just north of you, with both of those legal systems extant (and having had those kinds of appointed overseers far more recently than you folks), and we don’t have anything close to the murder nor corruption rate.
I think you need to be looking at something else there.
pluege
more correctly:
“Kids, when they’re young and they have stupid parents who are disinterested in them, do stupid stuff.
Eric Lindholm
A word search on this page indicates that exactly one person noted that Beebe was a Democrat and even that was to note he’s been a “popular Democratic governor.”
Chance that political party would not be mentioned if this kind of chicanery was employed by a Republican governor: 0.000000%
Not to worry: there are three mentions of “Bush”. We’ll always have Bush and Texas, right?