NY Times, Wash. Post chronicled Huckabee's rise in polls -- but not recent developments in DuMond case

In the last week, both The New York Times and The Washington Post have published articles discussing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's rise in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination. However, according to a Media Matters for America search of the Nexis database, neither newspaper has reported on Huckabee's role in the case of Wayne DuMond, an Arkansas man sentenced to life in prison for the 1984 rape of high school student Ashley Stevens, even though, following recent developments in the case, Huckabee has had to address the issue during a December 5 press conference and in multiple interviews. According to a 2002 Arkansas Times article by investigative journalist Murray Waas, DuMond was paroled in 1997 after "Huckabee and a senior member of his staff exerted behind-the-scenes influence" on Arkansas' Post Prison Transfer Board. Following his release two years later, according to the article, DuMond moved first to DeWitt, Missouri, then to Smithville, a rural community outside of Kansas City, where, in 2003, he was convicted for the September 2000 rape and murder of Carol Shields. DuMond died in prison in 2005, while under investigation for the 2001 rape and murder of another woman, Sandra Andrasek. While reporters have written blog posts on both nytimes.com and washingtonpost.com citing the DuMond case as potentially politically damaging to Huckabee, neither newspaper has published a news article discussing recent developments about Huckabee's role in the case.

There have been several new developments in the Huckabee-DuMond story over the last week:

• On December 4, McClatchy Newspapers reported that the mothers of Shields and Andrasek "say Huckabee is responsible, at least in part, for DuMond's release." The article quoted Lois Davidson, Shields' mother, as saying, "What a fool. ... Thinking he could rule the country when he couldn't even do a good job as governor of Arkansas," while Janet Williams, Andrasek's mother, said, "Wayne DuMond should have never been on the streets in Missouri. ... When politics are involved, people get hurt, and Sara and Carol Shields paid the ultimate price with their lives." The article also quoted Huckabee saying: "I'm deeply sorry for what they've been through. ... Nothing I can do or say can reduce their level of grief."

• In a December 4 blog post on The Huffington Post, Waas reported that "[a]s governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of [DuMond] despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again." Waas further reported that "[c]onfidential Arkansas government records ... obtained by the Huffington Post show that Huckabee was provided letters from several women" -- which he posted on the blog -- "who had been sexually assaulted by Dumond and who indeed predicted that he would rape again -- and perhaps murder -- if released." Waas wrote that the records of women warning him about what would happen if DuMond were released "directly contradict the version of events now being put forward by Huckabee," noting "Huckabee's repeated claims that he had no reason to believe Dumond would commit other violent crimes upon his release from prison." Waas also reported that, "in a 2002 story I wrote for the Arkansas Times about Huckabee's role in freeing Dumond, four board members -- three of whom spoke on the record -- said that Huckabee lobbied and pressured board members on the matter."

• On December 5, Huckabee was asked during a press conference if he had "pressured the parole board to release DuMond." Huckabee replied: "No. I did not. Let me categorically say that I did not." Huckabee claimed that during a parole board meeting, he "did not ask them to do anything. I did indicate it was sitting at my desk; and I was giving thought to it." Huckabee also asserted that the murders of Andrasek and Shields were "a horrible situation, horrible. I feel awful about it in every way. I wish that there was some way I could go back and reverse the clock and put him back in prison. But nobody, not me, not [former Arkansas Gov.] Jim Guy Tucker, not Bill Clinton, not that parole board, could ever imagine what might have transpired."

• In a December 5 entry on the Huffington Post, Waas reported that a former senior aide to Huckabee, Olan W. "Butch" Reeves, said that, in October 1996, Huckabee told the Post Prison Transfer Board that "the prison sentence meted out to Dumond for his rape conviction was 'outlandish' and 'way out of bounds for his crime.' Huckabee believed there 'was something nefarious' about how the state's criminal justice system had treated Dumond, Reeves said."

While neither the Post nor the Times has reported on these developments, reporters for both papers have asserted that the case is potentially damaging to Huckabee. In a December 5 post on the Times' political blog The Caucus, staff writer Kate Phillips wrote that the DuMond case "is an episode in the career of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee that probably will not go away soon. It has all the markings of salacious, tabloidian detail that can haunt a candidate, a lawmaker, an elected official, who walks and stalks the halls of criminal justice, who has, as he has said, weighed decisions on whether to impose capital punishment, and has ordered death." Similarly, in a December 5 post on the Times blog The Opinionator, Op-Ed page staff editor Chris Suellentrop asked: "Which blogburst is worse for Huckabee, the newfound attention being paid to the case of Wayne DuMond -- a convicted rapist who was freed during Huckabee's tenure as Arkansas governor and who later was convicted of raping a Missouri woman -- or the chatter over Huckabee's admission, during an interview on Tuesday night, that he had yet to hear the news about the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran?" And in a December 6 post on his washingtonpost.com political blog The Fix, Chris Cillizza wrote that "the DuMond case is generating considerable talk at the moment and could well slow Huckabee's rise."