The Southern Baptist Preacher and politician I’ve code-named, “Finn” is under fire from both the political left and right for granting clemency to a robber who subsequently–and recently–killed four police officers in cold blood.  “Finn,” for his part, while regretful and grieving over the slain officers, continues to defend his decision to grant clemency–given what he knew–THEN.

While I have lambasted “Finn” previously here and here, honesty and fairness compels me to defend him here–and I agree with his reasoning!   I am a NOT man who is a “softie” regarding serious violent crime; my wife and father both quip that I would condemn a man to death for a spelling error! 

In 1989, a sixteen-year-old brat was sentenced to 108 years in prison–which, given his age and previously-clean record, strikes me as a tad severe–even for a crime as grave as armed robbery.  Moreover, when Governor “Finn” commuted the sentence by slightly more than half (to a still-strict 48 year stint), neither the trial judge, prosecutor, nor the teen’s original victims objected.  Further, “Finn” didn’t free this individual–that was done by the parole board some time later.

If Governor “Finn”–and I, for that matter, deserve condemnation for thinking an 108-year imprisonment without possibility of parole is too severe for a 16-year-old with no previous legal trouble, then where is the outrage for Mike Tyson, a grown man with a considerable prison record, being sentenced to only six-years imprisonment for forcible rape (a capital crime in some jurisdictions!)–and being allowed to box thereafter?

And what about the idea of second chances after periods of repentance–which is supposed to be common among professing Christians–especially clergy?  I remind you that “penitentiary” and “repentance” have the same root.

I can understand, however, the risk that Governor “Finn” and his State’s parole board took in commuting the sentence–and then paroling the convict; being wrong could cost lives–in this case, four of them.  However, I think it is unfair to single out Governor “Finn”–if the convict would have served the full commuted sentence, he would have been 64 years old; an age when most of us are pretty much too old and feeble to commit violent crimes–especially after doing forty-some years of “hard time.”

A better place to make more strict is paroling.  Some jurisdictions have passed laws requiring serving at least eighty-five percent of a sentence within federal guidelines before parole.  If such laws were in place in “Finn’s” home State, the prisoner would have been in his 50’s upon release–statistically and demographically too old to become a killer of anybody, let alone four police officers.

What do you think?