Huckabee Is Under Heightened Scrutiny

The case of Wayne Dumond, the convicted rapist, has long dogged Huckabee.

As governor, Huckabee publicly advocated for Dumond's release, saying he believed that life imprisonment for rape was excessive. He has denied that he called for the state's parole board to free Dumond in an October 1996 meeting, although some board members have suggested that Huckabee privately implored them at that meeting to parole the convict, who was released early in 1997.

Lois Davidson, the mother of Carol Sue Shields, the woman Dumond was convicted of killing in 2000 after his release, has emerged as a harsh Huckabee critic, along with Janet Williams, whose daughter Sarah was widely alleged to have been killed by Dumond a few years later. Dumond died in prison in 2005.

"I just want people to realize what kind of man Huckabee is," Janet Williams told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette this week. "He closed a blind eye to a really dangerous man and doesn't care, because he thinks he's invincible."

Repeatedly asked about the matter this week, Huckabee has said: "It was a horrible situation, horrible. I feel awful about it in every way."

He has also noted repeatedly that the parole board was filled with appointees of Bill Clinton, when he was governor of Arkansas, and of his successor, Democrat Jim Guy Tucker.

"I wish that there was some way I could go back and reverse the clock and put him back in prison," Huckabee said in a news conference. "But nobody, not me, not Jim Guy Tucker, not Bill Clinton, not that parole board, could ever imagine what might have transpired."