George Wallace's Shooter Set to Leave Prison in December
By Joe Holley and Nelson Hernandez
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 24, 2007; A05

After 35 years in prison, Arthur H. Bremer, the man who attempted to assassinate Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace during his 1972 presidential campaign, is scheduled to walk out of the Maryland Correctional Institute at Hagerstown in December.

Bremer, 57, has never publicly expressed remorse for the shooting that left Wallace paralyzed and in pain for the rest of his life, but Wallace's son said his family has forgiven the shooter.

"I think God's law has been adhered to, and we're comfortable with that," George Wallace Jr. told the Press-Register of Mobile, Ala. "But having said that, I don't believe that given the suffering my father endured all those years from the gunshots and the constant paralysis -- I don't think Arthur Bremer's incarceration comes close to that type of suffering."

Bremer was a 21-year-old busboy from Milwaukee when he approached Wallace after a campaign stop before a boisterous crowd of about 2,000 in the Laurel Shopping Center parking lot. Wallace, a prominent segregationist who had won three Democratic primaries and was expected to win in Maryland and Michigan, had just finished speaking when Bremer shot him with a .38 revolver at close range. An Alabama state trooper, a Secret Service agent and a Wallace campaign volunteer were also wounded.

From the day the bullets entered his chest and stomach -- one lodging near his spine -- until the day he died 26 years later, Wallace was paralyzed in the legs, lived in constant pain and suffered a variety of maladies as a result of his injuries.

A Prince George's County jury rejected Bremer's insanity defense, and the judge sentenced him to 63 years in prison (later reduced to 53 years by a county Circuit Court panel).

"It was not a difficult case. The result was automatic, almost, under the circumstances," said Arthur A. Marshall Jr., the former Prince George's state's attorney who prosecuted the case. "The sentence was, I think, appropriate."

A case manager, Leonard Vaughan, said that Bremer is to be released under a state program that reduces prison time for inmates who have a prison job and maintain good behavior.

Bremer, a clerk in the prison, could be released sooner than December, Vaughan said, because he earns more days off his sentence each month. He has been at Hagerstown since 1979.

Marshall said that in such cases inmates are often released after finishing half of their sentences. "He served well more than 50 percent of it. I guess it's about time," Marshall said.

Details about where Bremer will live were not available, although he will be required to check in regularly with a pardons and parole officer until the end of his official sentence -- May 15, 2025.

Benjamin Lipsitz, the Baltimore lawyer who defended Bremer, would not comment on the case without his client's permission.

"He's always been pretty adamant about not speaking to the media," Lipsitz said.

Bremer's only commentary has come from a diary he kept leading up to the assassination attempt. He wrote that Nixon had been his initial target before he shifted his focus to the Alabama governor, whose outspoken views opposing racial integration made him one of America's most controversial political figures.

"It's worth death or a long trial and life in prison," Bremer wrote in the diary. "Life outside ain't so hot. I want to do something bold and dramatic, forcefull and dynamic. A statement of my manhood for the world to see."

Bremer came up for parole periodically, beginning in 1985; Wallace said he was not opposed to his assailant going free. In 1995, he wrote a letter to Bremer, saying that he had forgiven him and that he hoped the two could meet. Bremer never responded.

Two years later, shortly before Wallace's death, Bremer argued in an appeal for parole that he should be released from prison because Wallace and other segregationist politicians were "dinosaurs."

Nick Zarvos, the Secret Service agent who was shot, said he was untroubled by Bremer's release.

"I never through all these years had any anger toward him," Zarvos said. "If I had anger -- it's been 35 years -- that would probably destroy me. So I just don't go there, you know?"

I don't have any feelings one way or another whether he should be released. But what saddened me was this line:

He served well more than 50 percent of it. I guess it's about time," Marshall said.

No, it's not "about time" just because he served half of it. He was given the sentence the judge thought was fair given what he did. (And even that was reduced.) You can say he's rehabilitated, you can say he earned it because of good behavior -- but the entire notion that someone is entitled to be released for no reason other than he served an arbitrary percentage of time is ridiculous! What does a sentence even mean if the prisoner is going to be automatically released long before that?

I understand that good conduct time is necessary to provide incentives for good behavior, but I hate that it leads to attitudes like this, which in turn leads to such cynicism for our justice system.

Well, if rehabilitation is a justification, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of it in the story. There are no statements of remorse. To the contrary, he continues to appear proud of his accomplishment.

Notions of punishment and deterrence have been minimized over the years in contrast to the notion of rehabilitation. Yet, we have no better measure of rehabilitation than some statistical measure of recidivism that equates individuals with the average.

Maybe he got jail credit for succesful completion of a drug or alcohol program!

Or perhaps a good diversity or anger management class.