“Dear Wayne, I have reviewed your applications for executive clemency, specifically a commutation and/or pardon.... My desire is that you be released from prison. I feel now that parole is the best way for your reintegration into society .... Therefore, after careful consideration ... I have denied your applications.”

The fact that so many people do not fully understand the difference between a pardon, a commutation, and a parole is something with which I became all to familiar during the course pf perhaps one of the more troubling cases to ever come across my desk, that of convicted rapist Wayne Dumond......

.....The sentence given to Dumond was harsher than any sentence for a similar crime in at least a dozen years for that county. In 1992, while Governor Bill Clinton was out of state campaigning for president, Acting Governor Jim Guy Tucker, the lieutenant governor, commuted Dumond's sentence, making him eligible for parole. The governor did not have the authority to issue parole; for that, authority rested soley in the hands of the parole board, and required an approved parole plan with verification of employment and living arrangements outside prison. Despite of being eligible, Dumond was denied parole each time he applied.

Dumond's file for additional commutation was sitting on Jim Guy Tucker's desk when I assumed the office of governor. Since Tucker had already commuted his sentence, making him parole-eligible, any further commutation would have reduced his sentence to time served, allowing him to leave prison immedietly with or without a parole plan.

Prior to leaving office, Tucker had told me in a personal conversation that he had commuted Dumond's sentence because it seemed excessive in view of similar cases from that area, and because of other concerns he had about the case. While there was speculation at the time that Governor Clinton was unaware that the commutation was going to take place, I know from my understanding of the inner workings of the process in the governor's office how impossible that would be. The commutation would have involved the participation of several staff members in Governor Clinton's office. It is unthinkable that an action of that magnitude could have happened without his knowledge, if not full approval.

By the time I saw Dumond's file in September 1996, I had received information that gave me reason to consider commuting his sentence to time served. Per the Arkansas law, I announced my intention to do so. Subsequent to that announcement, additional information surfaced that caused me to concern about his being free without any responsibility for supervision and regular reporting to a parole officer. Based on his exemplary prison record and the support that he had gained, and due to the commuted sentence from Lieutenant Governor Tucker, I supported his parole, but ultimately denied hisrequest for a further commutation. It was my only official action in the Dumond case. A parole plan was eventually approved for Dumond, but two years later he was arrested on a murder charge of a Missouri woman and suspected in yet another similar killing. He died in jail before going to trial and with his death, many unanswered questions remain.