When cruelty isn't everything, it's the ONLY thing...and it's about Sarah Huckabee Sanders
What overwhelming evidence of innocence??? Meh, that doesn't matter if it might hurt her re-election prospects.
But it is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep - into evil.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
When you're surrounded by stupidity, self-preservation isn't a sin.
Meljean Brook, Riveted
Never let it be said that Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is cursed with an oversupply of compassion, kindness, or selflessness. Nor is she one to consider the preponderance of evidence when considering clemency. No, true to her Republican law-and-order roots, once a criminal’s in prison, they’re going to stay there…even if it turns out that the overwhelming weight of available evidence says they’re innocent.
Poor Charlie Vaughn has had the misfortune to have his conviction re-considered by Gov. Huckabee Sanders, who, if she had her druthers, would’ve fried him in Arkansas’ electric chair already.
There is new information in the unbelievably tragic case of Charlie Vaughn, an Arkansas man who has spent the last three decades in prison for a crime that another man confessed to committing all by himself. Journalist Radley Balko, who has been covering Vaughn’s case for some time now, shared this week that Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has refused to grant clemency.
It’s hardly surprising, given Sanders’s penchant for cruelty, but it’s particularly galling given the overwhelming evidence of Vaughn’s innocence and the fact that he is largely only in prison for reasons of paperwork.
So, this seems as if it should be a pretty easy fix:
Someone else has confessed to the crime that Vaughn is doing time for…and admitted to committing the crime by himself.
“[H]e is largely only in prison for reasons of paperwork.” This will become more clear (and more ridiculous) in a moment.
In 1988, Charlie Vaughn, who suffers from both mental illness and a severe intellectual disability, and three other men were accused of raping and murdering 81-year-old Myrtle Holmes. Two of those men were later released from prison after another confessed to having committed the crime alone. This checked out with a subsequent DNA analysis that found that the man who confessed was the only one whose DNA was found at the scene.
Vaughn was not released, however, because he did not know about those developments in the case and therefore did not file a claim within one year of new evidence being uncovered. According to the state of Arkansas, this means he forfeited the ability to cite any of the evidence that led to his supposed accomplices’ exonerations.
So…even though it was a virtual certainty that Vaughan was innocent, the fact that HE DIDN’T TAKE ACTION meant he forfeited his right to be exonerated. Instead of it being incumbent upon the State of Arkansas to provide that information to Vaughn and/or his attorney, he languished in prison, and the clock ran out on his opportunity to be freed.
Never mind that there was no way that Vaughan could’ve known about these developments…BECAUSE HE WAS IN PRISON. And, being someone who suffers from a mental illness and a severe intellectual disability, Charlie Vaughan would’ve hardly been equipped to pursue exoneration even if he’d known of the exonerations of his “accomplices.”
As Radley Balko explained:
The state of Arkansas would later argue that Vaughn should have been aware of the developments in the other two cases, and because he didn’t file a claim within a year of when the attorneys in those cases uncovered new evidence, he had failed to show due diligence, and therefore is barred from benefiting from that new evidence.
When that evidence was revealed, Vaughn was sitting in an Arkansas prison cell. He had no attorney at the time. Vaughn is also illiterate. During questioning for an evidentiary hearing in one of the other two cases, Vaughn appeared to think the hearing was for him.
Oh, right; I forgot to mention that Charlie Vaughan, in addition to suffering from mental illness and a severe intellectual disability, was illiterate. And that he had no legal representation.
So how was he supposed to know what was happening in his case from his prison cell? And even if he had known, what would he have been able to do with that information?
Charlie Vaughan, like his two “accomplices,” is innocent, should be acquitted, and should not have spent the past three decades sitting in a prison cell.
His “accomplices” initially missed the filing deadlines but eventually prevailed and were freed. Vaughan, however, since he couldn’t read or write, sent a letter (written by a fellow inmate) to the federal courthouse in Little Rock, AR.
Unbeknownst to Vaughan, this letter would, through lousy timing and no fault of his own, result in his remaining imprisoned for the next 28+ years…and counting.
Vaughn was barred from filing for relief on a federal level because at one point, several years ago, he sent a petition and a letter (written by another prisoner as he cannot read or write) to the federal courthouse in Arkansas saying that he was innocent of the crime, did not understand what he was pleading guilty to and had ineffective assistance. All of these things were true, but the letter was dismissed.
And it wouldn’t get better for Vaughn….
You see, outrage over Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City led to fears that McVeigh and co-conspirator Terry Nichols could spend the rest of their lives jamming up the court system with appeals. This led to a former Arkansas governor (sorry) signing the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) into law, which restricted prisoners to only one federal review of their case. So the petition that Vaughn sent to the federal courthouse without the assistance of an actual lawyer counted as his “one shot.” (Ed. note- emphasis mine)
It’s not just the confession that points to Charlie Vaughn’s innocence. He was kept in prison for over a year before he “confessed” himself, after being told that it was the only way he could avoid the death penalty. A judge actually asked for Vaughn to be given a competency hearing, but instead of doing that, the sheriff sent in an informant to talk to him and extract a confession, of which there is literally no record. There is also a ton of evidence that the prosecutors in the case hid or destroyed exculpatory evidence.
So, the conclusion that should be drawn from all of this is that Charlie Vaughan is innocent…but that no one in Arkansas’ law enforcement community has over-extended themselves to see that justice was not done. The State of Arkansas has done what it could to paper over Vaughan’s “problem,” perhaps to minimize legal and potential financial exposure. Or maybe it was simply sheer cruelty, and no one gave a damn about a poor, illiterate old Black man with mental health issues.
It’s become so evident that Charlie Vaughan is innocent that even the victim's niece has been campaigning for his release. She can’t see how justice is served by imprisoning “someone, anyone” for the murder of her aunt…and it’s difficult to argue with her on that count.
Vaughn’s attorney Stuart Chanen made a plea to Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders over the summer and met with her chief counsel, Cortney Kennedy. It seemed to have gone well, but he ultimately got this very short and not-so-sweet response.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chanen,
The Governor completed her review of Mr. Vaughn’s file last week. Unfortunately, she has chosen not to grant clemency at this time. He will be able to reapply in 6 years, pursuant to statute.
Six years! Six actual years! The guy is obviously innocent, but he has to wait six years! So surprising that with judgment like this, Sanders is the most unpopular Arkansas governor in 20 years.
It seems Gov. Huckabee Sanders is playing politics. When her father, Mike Huckabee, was Governor, he pardoned some folks he thought had changed during their time in prison, and they went on to commit additional crimes. Gov. Huckabee Sanders may be erring on the side of not making the same mistake. That would make sense if Vaughan were guilty of the crime he’s imprisoned for.
But Charlie Vaughan is innocent and has spent three decades in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. And now the Governor is making him wait another six years. Pursuant to statute, of course.
Gov. Huckabee Sanders is determined to be seen as “tough on crime.” Earlier this year, she signed a bill that revoked parole for some crimes and made it more difficult to obtain for others. It also reduced the time prisoners could have taken off their sentences for good behavior.
Additionally, the bill provided funding for a new 3,000-bed prison. Yay, another warehouse that will have the (sort of) unintended effect of turning criminals into animals. Another triumph for humanity, eh?
What has happened to Vaughn is not a bug, it’s a feature. It is about “projecting strength” — which, as far as most of the political Right is concerned, means going balls to the wall without much thought as to whether or not that is actually a good idea. Only wimpy pajama boys care about things like “actual innocence.” (Certainly dead Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia did not.) Only a bleeding heart idiot who never would have made it in the Wild West would think that prosecutors should have to play by the rules when the criminals sure don’t, or that maybe police interrogators should “go easy” on a mentally ill person with a severe intellectual disability who cannot read or write and has been locked up in a prison for a full year.
They actually do believe that if they make an exception for someone who is innocent, then the guilty people will be able to just walk all over them. It does not matter if innocent people are locked up, because locking innocent people up makes them look more badass and makes the criminals think “Boy, if they’re keeping this obviously innocent person in prison for 30 years because of a paperwork fuckup, imagine what they’d do to me!” Or so they believe.
Most “law and order” Republicans believe that if you’re in the criminal justice system, you’re there for a reason- the system works, and it protects the innocent from the guilty. Game, set, match.
Except that, like any human-designed system, the American criminal justice system is far from perfect. Too often riven by corruption, personal ambition, and the desire for personal retribution, it can be and often is used against people for the wrong reasons. And what happens then? How do we protect innocent people caught up in a system never designed to separate the innocent from the guilty?
The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel. As the sense of responsibility is always strongest, in proportion as it is undivided, it may be inferred that a single man would be most ready to attend to the force of those motives which might plead for a mitigation of the rigor of the law, and least apt to yield to considerations which were calculated to shelter a fit object of its vengeance.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 74
The power of clemency is the most righteous granted to Governors. It’s also the most prone to abuse and misuse due to political considerations. Governors don’t like to look as if they’re second-guessing or undermining law enforcement or the judicial system, even when it’s appropriate.
How, then, do we solve for people like Charlie Vaughan, who are too quickly chewed up and spit out by corrupt, inept, and uncaring justice systems like Arkansas? There are still too many states that run on corruption, incompetence, and broken give-a-fucks.
How do we accomplish ANY of these things when the Governor of Arkansas is more concerned with her political future than the life and well-being of one of her constituents? Sure, who’s going to stand up for an illiterate 81-year-old man suffering from mental health issues and a severe intellectual disability? He has an attorney now, but even Vaughan’s legal representation is hamstrung by Arkansas law. The Governor holds the commutation power, and she’s refusing to use it. Right now, that’s the only available avenue to freeing Vaughan.
How cynical and devoid of compassion must one be to ignore the clear and unmistakable evidence of Charlie Vaughan’s evidence? Hasn’t the man suffered enough?
Apparently not, at least in the Governor’s estimation.
Sadly, one must only be Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to be sufficiently cynical and devoid of compassion to ignore the evidence of his innocence. It’s what Jesus would do, yeah?
If Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a Christian, I’m Mother Teresa.
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Sarah (upc)Huckabee Sanders: I *AM* the water at Camp Lejeune.