As Twitchy reported earlier, reporter Dave Weigel recently interviewed Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman (over Google Meet, of course) and the subject of the black jogger he chased down with his truck and held at gunpoint came up. Fetterman, without pushback, said it was “a split-second decision in the face of gunfire” — except there was no gunfire.
Fetterman has been criticized as soft on crime and wanting to release murderers onto the streets, so Weigel asked him when someone convicted of first-degree murder deserved clemency. Fetterman then described “The Morgan Freeman Test”:
One of my questions for @JohnFetterman: When does someone convicted of first degree murder deserve clemency?
Introducing: The Morgan Freeman Test. https://t.co/dhUKCdy6ZN pic.twitter.com/WWJRfJd5lv
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) October 18, 2022
That reads:
It’s really a very simple choice. I believe the perfect metaphor is “The Shawshank Redemption.” That’s a touchstone that virtually everybody has seen, everybody understands. I’ve asked people, would you want Morgan Freeman to die in prison or not? And I’ve never met anybody that says, “Yeah, he should die in prison. I would have voted to have him die in prison.”
Well, should Jack Nicholson have died in prison for killing Scatman Crothers like that in “The Shining?”
One first degree murderer Fetterman voted to release (the rest of the board voted no) savagely beat a high school student with a baseball bat, then shot him to death. The victim was a cop’s son.
Sounds just like Red from Shawshank! https://t.co/ToJTKuIKqD
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 18, 2022
Fetterman keeps using this line, but maybe he doesn't know what Red was serving time for.
In the Stephen King book, Red cut the brake line on his wife's car for insurance money. She had a neighbor & her infant daughter in the car when they crashed & died https://t.co/Iu9qgS9Yv6
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) October 18, 2022
I mean when Red was released from prison he almost immediately violated his parole and fled to Mexico to live with his co-conspirator off the money they stole. https://t.co/g4Y0f7QitK
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) October 18, 2022
https://twitter.com/FitzDrum/status/1582478190001672192
Dave throws Feckless Fetterman another softball and John manages to *&^% it up anyway. https://t.co/6fMOC53lz6
— Nathan Wurtzel (@NathanWurtzel) October 18, 2022
everyone who commits murder should get a 3hr Frank Darabont movie about them. if we like the killer by the end, he gets parole. simple. https://t.co/sIVfL2nsrM
— granite⛰ (@gran1te_mtn) October 18, 2022
My answer would be if the prisoner is magical like in the Green Mile https://t.co/L8M2GiNHNQ
— Still T.E.D. (@also_ted) October 18, 2022
I agree with John Fetterman that Morgan Freeman should not die in prison, at least not unless he is convicted of murder or some other very serious crime in a court of law https://t.co/ebB88UVOwc
— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) October 18, 2022
“Hey, Morgan Freeman turned his life around as Ellis Boyd Redding in a movie 25 years ago, so should life in prison really be a thing?” —Gubernatorial Candidate https://t.co/kmuZfuUWKF
— Rafael A. Mangual (@Rafa_Mangual) October 18, 2022
Yes, Red should have died in prison. https://t.co/9GkDWB3ZbI
— Derek Hunter (@derekahunter) October 18, 2022
This is what a Harvard education gets you. https://t.co/VLEseKvAwn
— J. Respectful Clark (@JReubenCIark) October 18, 2022
Infantalization of public policy has consequences. Disastrous consequences. It’s like someone literally explained something to Festerman like he was a 5 year old, and now he’s running w/it. This is not a serious candidate or a serious policy. https://t.co/i8vilMI7HN
— Contriteship89 (@contriteship89) October 18, 2022
Does Fetterman know that Shawshank Redemption is…a movie…with actors? And that this is real life — and these are brutal murders? https://t.co/34e9MvqHxJ https://t.co/kBMhAO8Gbo
— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) October 18, 2022
Should the clown in “It” have been given life in prison without parole? Think about it.
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Related:
John Fetterman tells Dave Weigel bald-faced lie about black jogger incident, and Weigel totally lets him get away with it https://t.co/UDxHqfvAdO
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 18, 2022