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| Barbour’s Pardons Spark National Outrage |
| By packet-media.com - Sarah Fowler |
| Published: 01/12/2012 |
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A Mississippi judge has halted the release of 21 inmates that recently received pardons by former governor Haley Barbour. Barbour garnered national attention when he pardoned nearly 200 convicted felons during his last days in office, with a reported four of them being convicted killers. However, CNN reported that the number of murders pardoned has reached 16, including five that Barbour pardoned back in 2008. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood filed an injunction with Circuit Judge Tomie Green in an attempt to halt the process. Hood cited Mississippi state law that demands Barbour give notice of the pardons in writing 30 days prior—-an action that Hood believes Barbour failed to do. Green granted the injunction late Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 11, leaving the remaining 21 inmates behind bars for the time being. The fate of the 21 inmates, as well as the other 178 convicts, will be determined at a Jan. 23 court hearing. In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Hood said of the former governor, “He’s tried to rule the state like Boss Hogg and he didn’t think the law applied to him.” Hood also added that the pardons are “a slap in the face to everyone in law enforcement and Gov. Barbour should be ashamed.” The former governor initially refrained from commenting on the pardons and when asked by the Associated Press on Tuesday how the pardons affected the victims’ families, Barbour responded, “It’s Phil Bryant’s day,” alluding to the start of the new governor’s term However, the office of the former governor released a statement Wednesday: “Some people have misunderstood the clemency process and think that all or most of the individuals who received clemency from former Gov. Haley Barbour were in jail at the time of their release. Approximately 90 percent of these individuals were no longer in custody, and a majority of them had been out for years. The pardons were intended to allow them to find gainful employment or acquire professional licenses as well as hunt and vote. My decision about clemency was based upon the recommendation of the Parole Board in more than 90 percent of the cases. The 26 people released from custody due to clemency is just slightly more than one-tenth of one percent of those incarcerated. Read More. |
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