THIS IS WHY PEOPLE HATE POLITICIANS – AT 7:36 P.M. ET:  Arnold has left the governorship of California, turning the office over to Jerry Brown.  But one of his last acts is creating an uproar.  From The Los Angeles Times:

On his final night in office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reduced the prison sentence of the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, Esteban Nuñez, who had pleaded guilty to participating in the killing of a college student.

The governor also granted several other commutations and pardons and gave plum government appointments to political allies and the spouse of his chief of staff. Schwarzenegger announced the moves in a batch of eleventh-hour press releases e-mailed to reporters.

Esteban Nuñez, now 21, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his role in the stabbing death of Luis Santos. Schwarzenegger cut the prison term to seven years, noting in a statement that Nuñez, although involved in the fight that ended in Santos' death, did not inflict the fatal knife wound. Schwarzenegger cited a finding by the court that it was Esteban Nuñez's friend Ryan Jett who stabbed Santos, "severing his heart."

COMMENT:  I guess Schwarzenegger recalls that President Bill Clinton gave last-minute pardons to political allies, and got away with it.

But murder is something else.  And the blatancy of Arnold's favoritism toward a political ally is being blasted all over the state...especially by the victim's family.

This will make it harder for Arnold to get another public office, should he seek it.  It has been reported that he'd like an environmental job in the Obama administration.  It won't have any effect if Arnold wants to return to making movies.  In Hollywood, murder is an act of righteous sociological protest.

A judge is required to recuse himself from cases where he or she has a personal interest.  You'd think that, by now, some mechanism could be found wherein presidents and governors could have politically sensitive issues of law decided by an outside panel.  But there'd be no guarantee of payoffs that way, would there?

January 4, 2011