Wayne DuMond
Encyclopedia
Wayne Eugene DuMond was an American
criminal convicted of murder
and rape
. He was born in De Witt, Arkansas
, and is buried in the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery of Ethel, Arkansas.
DuMond had six children and three wives. His second wife, Dusty, staunchly supported him throughout his imprisonment in Arkansas, but died in a car crash January 8, 1999, after the approval of his parole
but prior to the approval of his release plan.
His final wife, Terry Sue, met him while he was in prison in Arkansas, visiting him as part of a church group which supported his release from prison. During his parole, after he was widowed, they married and lived together in Missouri, where he committed his final crimes.
DuMond's case received intense nationwide attention in late 2007, when his parole became an issue for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee
during the 2008 presidential campaign, similar to the way Willie Horton
was an issue for Michael Dukakis
during the 1988 presidential campaign
. (The Horton case was highlighted in a famous television commercial that caused a significant drop in Dukakis’ poll numbers.) Lois Davidson, mother of the young woman killed by DuMond after his release, appeared in a similar one-minute video entitled “Lois Davidson tells her story” which was posted on YouTube
.
-era military veteran, DuMond told reporters that he "helped slaughter a village of Cambodia
ns".
On August 8, 1972, DuMond was charged with murder in Lawton, Oklahoma
. He committed the crime with help from two other men. DuMond used the 17-year-old daughter of one of his accomplices to entice the victim to an isolated location, where DuMond and his accomplices beat him to death with a claw hammer. Prosecutors did not charge DuMond after he agreed to testify against the two others, though he admitted in court that he was among those who attacked the murder victim.
On October 19, 1973, DuMond was charged with molesting
a teenage girl in the parking lot of a shopping center in Tacoma, Washington
. The second-degree assault charge resulted in a five-year deferred sentence and mandatory drug counseling during the five-year probation.
On September 28, 1976, DuMond was charged with raping a woman in DeWitt, Arkansas. The charges were dropped before trial with the condition he undergo counseling.
conviction from a rape perpetrated in Arkansas
in 1984. The victim, Ashley Stevens, was a 17-year-old cheerleader and a third cousin of then-Governor Bill Clinton
. Although she is much younger than Clinton, they share the same set of great-great-grandparents.
In March 1985, after his arrest but before his trial, DuMond claimed he was attacked in his home by two men and castrated
. No arrests were made in the incident. Phil Ostermann, the Arkansas State Police
investigator who handled the castration case, noted in his report that Dr. Jeff Whitfield of the Elvis Presley Trauma Center in Memphis examined DuMond after the incident, and was asked by DuMond's wife whether it was possible the castration was self-inflicted. Whitfield responded that it was possible, and he had noted similar cases of self-mutilation in the past. Fletcher Long, the attorney who prosecuted DuMond for the rape of Ashley Stevens, was skeptical that DuMond could have castrated himself, but he also doubted DuMond's account because there was no evidence of a struggle, or that he had been tied up (which should have left ligature marks), and there was a two-thirds-empty half-gallon bottle of Jim Beam whiskey at the scene of the supposed assault.
While in prison, DuMond successfully sued the St. Francis County and the local sheriff who publicly displayed DuMond's severed testicle
s and later flushed them down the toilet. DuMond was sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison.
After Clinton was elected president, a right-wing campaign alleged that Clinton had framed DuMond for rape. Prominent among those pushing for DuMond to be pardoned were Guy Reel, author of Unequal Justice: Wayne DuMond, Bill Clinton, and the Politics of Rape in Arkansas; Steve Dunleavy
of the New York Post
; and Jay Cole, Baptist
pastor for the Mission Fellowship Bible Church in Fayetteville, who had championed DuMond's cause for more than a decade on his radio show.
Many of the arguments advanced by DuMond's supporters have since been shown to be incorrect. Dunleavy claimed that:
Dunleavy also referred to the young woman, a minor at the time of the assault, on the record as the "so-called victim", and asserted "that rape never happened".
At the time of the trial, only ABO blood typing evidence was presented, which indicated that DuMond, along with 28 percent of the population, could have produced the semen
. In 1987 the victim’s jeans were given to an expert, Dr. Moses Schanfield. Using protein
-based immunoglobulin allotyping, a technique less specific than current standard DNA tests, Schanfield examined a semen spot on the jeans. Dunleavy claimed Schanfield told him, "No way, zip, nada. No way DuMond was the donor of that sperm. Not in a million years." However, the court documents do not accord with that. In DuMond vs. Lockhart, the Court wrote:
The victim had testified that DuMond raped her vaginally, then forced her to perform oral sex
during which time he ejaculated, then brief vaginal rape again. She had also testified that she spat the ejaculate from her mouth onto the ground, and that her jeans were underneath her body, not near her face.
Contrary to Dunleavy's claim that the victim had first identified two other men as her rapist, then failed to pick DuMond out of a lineup, the Court wrote in the background to its DuMond vs. Lockhart decision:
The victim would later tell Governor Mike Huckabee, in a personal meeting at which she, her family, and the prosecuting attorney in the case pleaded with him to reverse his decision to release DuMond, “This is how close I was to Wayne DuMond. I will never forget his face. And now I don’t want you ever to forget my face.”
candidate Mike Huckabee
in securing DuMond's parole while Huckabee was governor of Arkansas
.
Clemency is the reduction of a sentence through commutation
; pardon
is forgiveness of the crime and elimination of the sentence; parole
is release from prison but includes a period of probation
and may, as in DuMond's case, involve other restrictions as well.
According to the Washington Posts "Fact Checker" column, in September 1990 then-governor Bill Clinton overrode a recommendation of the Arkansas parole board to commute DuMond's sentence to time already served, arguing that "...the issue should be left to an appeals court." The DuMond case:
When Clinton was campaigning for president in 1992, his lieutenant governor
Jim Guy Tucker
became the acting governor of Arkansas. Tucker reviewed DuMond's life-plus-20-years sentence. Because the jury had not been allowed to take DuMond's castration into consideration, Tucker commuted the sentence down to slightly over 39 years. This clemency meant that DuMond would eventually be considered for parole. When Huckabee became governor, he supported the release of DuMond, with one state official stating "The problem with the governor is that he listens to Jay Cole and reads Steve Dunleavy and believes them ... without doing other substantiative work." Huckabee, addressing DuMond as "Dear Wayne," wrote to DuMond in January 1997: "My desire is that you be released from prison."The Story Mike Huckabee Dreads, by Byron York, December 5, 2007, National Review
. The letter explained why the governor had denied commutation but instead was recommending parole on the grounds that parole would result in supervision, which Huckabee was said to have felt was important.
The details of how much assistance Huckabee provided to DuMond remain uncertain, in part because the governor met in "executive session" with five of the seven parole board members to discuss the issue, and the administrator who normally took notes was removed from the room. This is a violation of Arkansas law as such secret executive sessions are limited by statute to discussions regarding personnel decisions, specifically to avoid the appearance of undue influence
from the Governor's office.
Although minutes would normally be kept of even executive sessions, the office administrator was asked to leave the room, and no record of that session was kept.
, six of the seven Democrat-appointed board members involved were still living. Board chairman Leroy Brownlee said he had no comment. Another board member said he did not remember details of the case. Another member could not be reached. Two more of the five members who were present at the closed meeting with Huckabee – Charles Chastain and Deborah Suttlar – have stated on the record that Huckabee used the private session to strongly advocate DuMond's parole. Huckabee denies their version, though he admits having met with them.
The sixth member of the board still living, Ermer Pondexter, who was absent from the meeting, has stated that Brownlee asked her, on the governor's behalf, to vote for DuMond's parole. This represented a reversal of Brownlee's positions of August 29, 1996, when he voted against parole, and September 10, 1996, when he voted against recommending executive clemency or pardon. Brownlee would later be reappointed to another seven-year term on the board by Huckabee.
A fourth parole board member (in addition to Chastain, Suttlar, and Pondexter) confirmed this story anonymously in 2002 and has not yet been identified by name in the 2007–2008 news cycle. Huckabee denies the version given by Chastain, Suttlar, Pondexter, and the anonymous fourth member, though he admits having met with the parole board and talking about DuMond.
Missouri crimes
Following his 1999 parole, DuMond moved to Missouri
in August 2000, where he married Terry Sue, a member of a church group who visited him while he was incarcerated in Arkansas. On June 22, 2001, DuMond was arrested and charged with the September 20, 2000, rape and murder of Carol Sue Shields. DuMond was convicted in the summer of 2003.
He was found dead in his cell at the Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron, Missouri
, on September 1, 2005. DuMond had been suffering from cancer
of the vocal cords. At the time of his death, charges were being prepared, but had not yet been filed, for the June 21, 2001, rape and murder of Sara Andrasek, who was in the early stages of pregnancy. Andrasek was murdered the day before DuMond's arrest for the murder of Carol Sue Shields.
DuMond in the 2008 presidential campaign
Wayne DuMond was the focus of a video which was called "devastating" and "absolutely brutal" by some in its impact on Huckabee's Presidential ambitions. In the video, Lois Davidson, mother of DuMond victim Carol Sue Shields, says, "If not for Mike Huckabee, Wayne DuMond would've been in prison, and Carol Sue would've been with us this year for Christmas
."
The video spread quickly on the Internet
, after appearing on YouTube and on HuckabeeFacts.com in the early morning hours of December 13, 2007. It was almost immediately compared to the famous Willie Horton
ad of 1988. As one political website put it, "You know how most campaign ads have a shelf life of a day or two? Yeah, um … this one may be around for awhile."
Initially, there was uncertainty about who had created the video. Due to its professional quality, some speculated that it was one of Huckabee's opponents, possibly Barack Obama
. Within hours it was revealed that the video was created by 29-year-old Keith Emis, of Fayetteville, Arkansas
, who said that he sought out Davidson and created the video after seeing her on television.
Emis said that he made the professional quality video with "no expenses, save gas and video tapes, and used friends as volunteer help, including one with video production experience. His uncle Donn Emis, a Fayetteville DJ, did the voiceover."
The video's impact is not certain; Huckabee was already a long-shot candidate before the video was released, and continued to be very popular among social conservatives and southern Republicans generally, despite the fact that the South has most of the states with conservative criminal justice systems.
External links
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
criminal convicted of murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
and rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
. He was born in De Witt, Arkansas
De Witt, Arkansas
De Witt is a city in Arkansas County, Arkansas, United States, which also serves as the county seat of the county's southern district. The population was 3,239 at the 2010 census.- History :...
, and is buried in the Mt. Pleasant Cemetery of Ethel, Arkansas.
DuMond had six children and three wives. His second wife, Dusty, staunchly supported him throughout his imprisonment in Arkansas, but died in a car crash January 8, 1999, after the approval of his parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
but prior to the approval of his release plan.
His final wife, Terry Sue, met him while he was in prison in Arkansas, visiting him as part of a church group which supported his release from prison. During his parole, after he was widowed, they married and lived together in Missouri, where he committed his final crimes.
DuMond's case received intense nationwide attention in late 2007, when his parole became an issue for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee
Michael "Mike" Dale Huckabee is an American politician who served as the 44th Governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. He was a candidate in the 2008 United States Republican presidential primaries, finishing second in delegate count and third in both popular vote and number of states won . He won...
during the 2008 presidential campaign, similar to the way Willie Horton
Willie Horton
William R. "Willie" Horton is an American convicted felon who, while serving a life sentence for murder, without the possibility of parole, was the beneficiary of a Massachusetts weekend furlough program...
was an issue for Michael Dukakis
Michael Dukakis
Michael Stanley Dukakis served as the 65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and from 1983–1991, and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He was born to Greek immigrants in Brookline, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, and was the longest serving...
during the 1988 presidential campaign
United States presidential election, 1988
The United States presidential election of 1988 featured no incumbent president, as President Ronald Reagan was unable to seek re-election after serving the maximum two terms allowed by the Twenty-second Amendment. Reagan's Vice President, George H. W. Bush, won the Republican nomination, while the...
. (The Horton case was highlighted in a famous television commercial that caused a significant drop in Dukakis’ poll numbers.) Lois Davidson, mother of the young woman killed by DuMond after his release, appeared in a similar one-minute video entitled “Lois Davidson tells her story” which was posted on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.
Early crimes
A decorated VietnamVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
-era military veteran, DuMond told reporters that he "helped slaughter a village of Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
ns".
On August 8, 1972, DuMond was charged with murder in Lawton, Oklahoma
Lawton, Oklahoma
The city of Lawton is the county seat of Comanche County, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Located in the southwestern region of Oklahoma approximately southwest of Oklahoma City, it is the principal city of the Lawton Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area...
. He committed the crime with help from two other men. DuMond used the 17-year-old daughter of one of his accomplices to entice the victim to an isolated location, where DuMond and his accomplices beat him to death with a claw hammer. Prosecutors did not charge DuMond after he agreed to testify against the two others, though he admitted in court that he was among those who attacked the murder victim.
On October 19, 1973, DuMond was charged with molesting
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
a teenage girl in the parking lot of a shopping center in Tacoma, Washington
Tacoma, Washington
Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...
. The second-degree assault charge resulted in a five-year deferred sentence and mandatory drug counseling during the five-year probation.
On September 28, 1976, DuMond was charged with raping a woman in DeWitt, Arkansas. The charges were dropped before trial with the condition he undergo counseling.
Arkansas rape
DuMond received his second sexual assaultSexual assault
Sexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature on another person, or any sexual act committed without consent. Although sexual assaults most frequently are by a man on a woman, it may involve any combination of two or more men, women and children....
conviction from a rape perpetrated in Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
in 1984. The victim, Ashley Stevens, was a 17-year-old cheerleader and a third cousin of then-Governor Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
. Although she is much younger than Clinton, they share the same set of great-great-grandparents.
In March 1985, after his arrest but before his trial, DuMond claimed he was attacked in his home by two men and castrated
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
. No arrests were made in the incident. Phil Ostermann, the Arkansas State Police
Arkansas State Police
The Arkansas State Police is the state police agency for Arkansas, which has jurisdiction anywhere in the state. It was created to protect the lives, property and constitutional rights of people in Arkansas...
investigator who handled the castration case, noted in his report that Dr. Jeff Whitfield of the Elvis Presley Trauma Center in Memphis examined DuMond after the incident, and was asked by DuMond's wife whether it was possible the castration was self-inflicted. Whitfield responded that it was possible, and he had noted similar cases of self-mutilation in the past. Fletcher Long, the attorney who prosecuted DuMond for the rape of Ashley Stevens, was skeptical that DuMond could have castrated himself, but he also doubted DuMond's account because there was no evidence of a struggle, or that he had been tied up (which should have left ligature marks), and there was a two-thirds-empty half-gallon bottle of Jim Beam whiskey at the scene of the supposed assault.
While in prison, DuMond successfully sued the St. Francis County and the local sheriff who publicly displayed DuMond's severed testicle
Testicle
The testicle is the male gonad in animals. Like the ovaries to which they are homologous, testes are components of both the reproductive system and the endocrine system...
s and later flushed them down the toilet. DuMond was sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison.
After Clinton was elected president, a right-wing campaign alleged that Clinton had framed DuMond for rape. Prominent among those pushing for DuMond to be pardoned were Guy Reel, author of Unequal Justice: Wayne DuMond, Bill Clinton, and the Politics of Rape in Arkansas; Steve Dunleavy
Steve Dunleavy
Stephen Francis Patrick Aloysius Dunleavy , is a journalist best known as a columnist for the New York Post...
of the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
; and Jay Cole, Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
pastor for the Mission Fellowship Bible Church in Fayetteville, who had championed DuMond's cause for more than a decade on his radio show.
Many of the arguments advanced by DuMond's supporters have since been shown to be incorrect. Dunleavy claimed that:
- DuMond was a "Vietnam veteran with no record" despite arrests for violent crime and previous rape charges going back to 1972;
- the rape victim "failed to identify DuMond in two lineups", although she had in fact identified him in the only lineup where he was present:
- the victim had "identified two other suspects, one an ex-boyfriend", although she had never in fact identified anyone but DuMond;
- DNA evidence had exonerated DuMond, although no such definitive evidence existed;
- Bill Clinton had personally intervened to keep DuMond in prison, despite the then-Governor's explicitly recusing himself from the case due to his distant blood-ties to the 17-year-old victim.
Dunleavy also referred to the young woman, a minor at the time of the assault, on the record as the "so-called victim", and asserted "that rape never happened".
At the time of the trial, only ABO blood typing evidence was presented, which indicated that DuMond, along with 28 percent of the population, could have produced the semen
Semen
Semen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that may contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
. In 1987 the victim’s jeans were given to an expert, Dr. Moses Schanfield. Using protein
Protein
Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
-based immunoglobulin allotyping, a technique less specific than current standard DNA tests, Schanfield examined a semen spot on the jeans. Dunleavy claimed Schanfield told him, "No way, zip, nada. No way DuMond was the donor of that sperm. Not in a million years." However, the court documents do not accord with that. In DuMond vs. Lockhart, the Court wrote:
"Dr. Schanfield had genetic allotyping performed on the semen found on the victim's pant leg. Schanfield concluded that based on the test, there was a ninety-nine plus percent probability that DuMond was not the rapist because the semen lacked a genetic marker which DuMond possessed. However, Dr. Schanfield's conclusion was based on the assumption that vaginaVaginaThe vagina is a fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles. Female insects and other invertebrates also have a vagina, which is the terminal part of the...
l fluids were not mixed with the semen used for the test. If the semen was intermixed with vaginal secretions, Dr. Schanfield reported that the results would be inconclusive."
The victim had testified that DuMond raped her vaginally, then forced her to perform oral sex
Oral sex
Oral sex is sexual activity involving the stimulation of the genitalia of a sex partner by the use of the mouth, tongue, teeth or throat. Cunnilingus refers to oral sex performed on females while fellatio refer to oral sex performed on males. Anilingus refers to oral stimulation of a person's anus...
during which time he ejaculated, then brief vaginal rape again. She had also testified that she spat the ejaculate from her mouth onto the ground, and that her jeans were underneath her body, not near her face.
Contrary to Dunleavy's claim that the victim had first identified two other men as her rapist, then failed to pick DuMond out of a lineup, the Court wrote in the background to its DuMond vs. Lockhart decision:
"During a photographic show-up, the victim indicated that Ricky White resembled the assailant. However, White was working in another part of the state on the day of the rape, and she did not identify him as the rapist at a one-person lineup. Later, Walter Stevenson, who matched the assailant's description and worked near a restaurant which the victim frequented, was placed in a lineup. She did not identify Stevenson as her assailant. Woodcutters working near the area of her home on the date of the rape were also brought in for lineups but none were recognized by the victim. On approximately October 29, 1984, the victim observed DuMond driving a pick-up truck on a Forrest City street and immediately identified him as the perpetrator of the crime. DuMond was taken into custody, placed in a lineup, and identified by her as the man who kidnappedKidnappingIn criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
and raped her."
The victim would later tell Governor Mike Huckabee, in a personal meeting at which she, her family, and the prosecuting attorney in the case pleaded with him to reverse his decision to release DuMond, “This is how close I was to Wayne DuMond. I will never forget his face. And now I don’t want you ever to forget my face.”
Arkansas parole controversy
DuMond's case resurfaced during the 2008 Presidential election when questions were raised on the conduct of RepublicanRepublican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
candidate Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee
Michael "Mike" Dale Huckabee is an American politician who served as the 44th Governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. He was a candidate in the 2008 United States Republican presidential primaries, finishing second in delegate count and third in both popular vote and number of states won . He won...
in securing DuMond's parole while Huckabee was governor of Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
.
Clemency is the reduction of a sentence through commutation
Commutation of sentence
Commutation of sentence involves the reduction of legal penalties, especially in terms of imprisonment. Unlike a pardon, a commutation does not nullify the conviction and is often conditional. Clemency is a similar term, meaning the lessening of the penalty of the crime without forgiving the crime...
; pardon
Pardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
is forgiveness of the crime and elimination of the sentence; parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
is release from prison but includes a period of probation
Probation
Probation literally means testing of behaviour or abilities. In a legal sense, an offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer...
and may, as in DuMond's case, involve other restrictions as well.
According to the Washington Posts "Fact Checker" column, in September 1990 then-governor Bill Clinton overrode a recommendation of the Arkansas parole board to commute DuMond's sentence to time already served, arguing that "...the issue should be left to an appeals court." The DuMond case:
"...became a cause celebre among some evangelical Christians in Arkansas after DuMond claimed to have undergone a religious conversion. DuMond's supporters argued that he was not being treated fairly because one of his alleged victims was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton. They accused Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, of preventing DuMond's release from prison in defiance of the wishes of his own parole board."
When Clinton was campaigning for president in 1992, his lieutenant governor
Lieutenant governor
A lieutenant governor or lieutenant-governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command"...
Jim Guy Tucker
Jim Guy Tucker
James "Jim" Guy Tucker, Jr. is an Arkansas political figure. He served as the 43rd Governor of Arkansas, the 11th Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas, Arkansas Attorney General, and U.S. Representative...
became the acting governor of Arkansas. Tucker reviewed DuMond's life-plus-20-years sentence. Because the jury had not been allowed to take DuMond's castration into consideration, Tucker commuted the sentence down to slightly over 39 years. This clemency meant that DuMond would eventually be considered for parole. When Huckabee became governor, he supported the release of DuMond, with one state official stating "The problem with the governor is that he listens to Jay Cole and reads Steve Dunleavy and believes them ... without doing other substantiative work." Huckabee, addressing DuMond as "Dear Wayne," wrote to DuMond in January 1997: "My desire is that you be released from prison."The Story Mike Huckabee Dreads, by Byron York, December 5, 2007, National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
. The letter explained why the governor had denied commutation but instead was recommending parole on the grounds that parole would result in supervision, which Huckabee was said to have felt was important.
The details of how much assistance Huckabee provided to DuMond remain uncertain, in part because the governor met in "executive session" with five of the seven parole board members to discuss the issue, and the administrator who normally took notes was removed from the room. This is a violation of Arkansas law as such secret executive sessions are limited by statute to discussions regarding personnel decisions, specifically to avoid the appearance of undue influence
Undue influence
Undue influence is an equitable doctrine that involves one person taking advantage of a position of power over another person. It is where free will to bargain is not possible.-Undue influence in contract law:...
from the Governor's office.
"The board’s executive session appears to have been a violation of the state’s Freedom of Information Act, which says state boards may meet privately only for the “specific purpose of considering employment, appointment, promotion, demotion, disciplining or resignation of any public officer or employee."
Although minutes would normally be kept of even executive sessions, the office administrator was asked to leave the room, and no record of that session was kept.
"Despite the fact that the meeting was closed, there still should have been a record of it, four former board members and a former staffer say. They say that Sharon Hansberry, the board’s office administrator, ordinarily attends the meeting and takes notes. It was also a common practice around that time, they say, for her to tape record the meetings as well, even though the tapes were often destroyed once the minutes were formalized. Former members of the board say that Hansberry was asked to leave the room when the board went into executive session. A spokesman for the board says that there is no record of what occurred in the executive session – no tape recording of the executive session, or notes, or minutes."
, six of the seven Democrat-appointed board members involved were still living. Board chairman Leroy Brownlee said he had no comment. Another board member said he did not remember details of the case. Another member could not be reached. Two more of the five members who were present at the closed meeting with Huckabee – Charles Chastain and Deborah Suttlar – have stated on the record that Huckabee used the private session to strongly advocate DuMond's parole. Huckabee denies their version, though he admits having met with them.
The sixth member of the board still living, Ermer Pondexter, who was absent from the meeting, has stated that Brownlee asked her, on the governor's behalf, to vote for DuMond's parole. This represented a reversal of Brownlee's positions of August 29, 1996, when he voted against parole, and September 10, 1996, when he voted against recommending executive clemency or pardon. Brownlee would later be reappointed to another seven-year term on the board by Huckabee.
A fourth parole board member (in addition to Chastain, Suttlar, and Pondexter) confirmed this story anonymously in 2002 and has not yet been identified by name in the 2007–2008 news cycle. Huckabee denies the version given by Chastain, Suttlar, Pondexter, and the anonymous fourth member, though he admits having met with the parole board and talking about DuMond.
Timeline of the parole
- 1990: Governor Bill Clinton overrides parole board recommendation to commute DuMond's sentence.
- 1992: Lieutenant Governor Jim Guy Tucker reduces DuMond's sentence from life plus 20 years to 39 years, making him eligible for parole.
- Aug. 29, 1996: The Arkansas parole board votes 4–1 to deny parole.
- Sept. 10, 1996: The board votes 5–0 not to not recommend commutation or pardon.
- Sept. 20, 1996: Governor Mike Huckabee announces his intent to commute Wayne DuMond's sentence to time served. This initiates a period of 30 to 120 days for comments on the decision, culminating on Jan 20th, 1997. The public reaction is not favorable.
- Oct. 31, 1996: Huckabee enters executive session with the parole board.
- Nov. 29, 1996: DuMond submits a request for reconsideration.
- Dec. 2, 1996: The parole board receives his request for reconsideration
- Dec. 19, 1996: DuMond is transferred from the Varner prison facility to the Tucker facility. The reasons given for this vary.
- Jan. 9, 1997: DuMond is interviewed at the Tucker facility.
- Jan. 16, 1997: The parole board votes 4–1 in favor of probation with the requirement that DuMond leave Arkansas.
- Jan. 20,1997: The comment period for commutation would have expired, had DuMond not already been paroled.
- Oct. 1999: DuMond is released.
Missouri crimes
Following his 1999 parole, DuMond moved to Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
in August 2000, where he married Terry Sue, a member of a church group who visited him while he was incarcerated in Arkansas. On June 22, 2001, DuMond was arrested and charged with the September 20, 2000, rape and murder of Carol Sue Shields. DuMond was convicted in the summer of 2003.
He was found dead in his cell at the Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron, Missouri
Cameron, Missouri
Cameron is a city in Clinton and DeKalb Counties in the U.S. state of Missouri. The population was 8,312 at the 2000 census.The Clinton County portion of Cameron is part of the Kansas City, MO–KS Metropolitan Statistical Area, while the DeKalb County portion is part of the St...
, on September 1, 2005. DuMond had been suffering from cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
of the vocal cords. At the time of his death, charges were being prepared, but had not yet been filed, for the June 21, 2001, rape and murder of Sara Andrasek, who was in the early stages of pregnancy. Andrasek was murdered the day before DuMond's arrest for the murder of Carol Sue Shields.
DuMond in the 2008 presidential campaign
Wayne DuMond was the focus of a video which was called "devastating" and "absolutely brutal" by some in its impact on Huckabee's Presidential ambitions. In the video, Lois Davidson, mother of DuMond victim Carol Sue Shields, says, "If not for Mike Huckabee, Wayne DuMond would've been in prison, and Carol Sue would've been with us this year for Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
."
The video spread quickly on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, after appearing on YouTube and on HuckabeeFacts.com in the early morning hours of December 13, 2007. It was almost immediately compared to the famous Willie Horton
Willie Horton
William R. "Willie" Horton is an American convicted felon who, while serving a life sentence for murder, without the possibility of parole, was the beneficiary of a Massachusetts weekend furlough program...
ad of 1988. As one political website put it, "You know how most campaign ads have a shelf life of a day or two? Yeah, um … this one may be around for awhile."
Initially, there was uncertainty about who had created the video. Due to its professional quality, some speculated that it was one of Huckabee's opponents, possibly Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
. Within hours it was revealed that the video was created by 29-year-old Keith Emis, of Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville is the county seat of Washington County, and the third largest city in Arkansas. The city is centrally located within the county and is home to the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville is also deep in the Boston Mountains, a subset of The Ozarks...
, who said that he sought out Davidson and created the video after seeing her on television.
Emis said that he made the professional quality video with "no expenses, save gas and video tapes, and used friends as volunteer help, including one with video production experience. His uncle Donn Emis, a Fayetteville DJ, did the voiceover."
The video's impact is not certain; Huckabee was already a long-shot candidate before the video was released, and continued to be very popular among social conservatives and southern Republicans generally, despite the fact that the South has most of the states with conservative criminal justice systems.
External links
- Documents Expose Huckabee's Role In Serial Rapist's Release, The Huffington PostThe Huffington PostThe Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
, Murray WaasMurray WaasMurray S. Waas is an American freelance investigative journalist known most recently for his coverage of the White House planning for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and ensuing controversies and American political scandals such as the Plame affair...
, December 4, 2007 - DuMond Case Revisited, Arkansas Times, September 1, 2005.