Posted on 01/14/2012 3:27:06 AM PST by KantianBurke
Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Friday he's "very comfortable" with his decision to grant pardons or other clemency to more than 200 people, including convicted killers, in his last days in office, telling Fox News that Mississippi is predominantly Christian and believes in forgiveness.
The pardons have set off outrage among some victims' families and prompted a judge to block the release of some of the pardoned inmates out of concern that proper notification rules were not followed.
Barbour told Fox News that any problem with paperwork was an accident on the part of corrections officials, who needed to send the notices out earlier to get them published in newspapers on time. But he defended the pardons.
"I understand and recognize that these families had love ones who were the victims of terrible crimes ... and I sympathize with the fact that this hurts them, that they lost somebody like that and that they're not going to forget it and they want vengance," Barbour said on Fox News' "Special Report."
"But what the state does and has done ... most people in Mississippi are Christians or profess to be Christians, and we believe in forgiveness and we believe in second chances," he said.
Barbour told the Associated Press in an earlier interview that it's a tradition in Mississippi for governors to free the trusties who worked at the Governor's Mansion. Four inmates freed this past weekend are convicted killers who worked as trusties.
And the former governor said he's not concerned that the freed trusties might harm anyone. "I have absolute confidence, so much confidence, that I'd let my grandchildren play with these five men," the Republican said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Romney is not all things but I think he will be forced to do a good job especially if we get both houses. I think Bolton thinks the same way. GET BEHIND THE REPUB CANDIDATE.
Yup. Old men get soft in the head and weak in the knees. Politicians should start at thirty and retire at sixty.
Slow down there.
Only one primary - out of 50 - has yet voted.
After Newt beats Romney in the primaries, then we can have this conversation about rallying behind our candidate.
Until then, all bets are off! Romney’s a sleazeball. He’s going to lose.
Crimes are suppose to be punished, that is a Biblical concept.
We haven’t picked one yet.
Another idiot, Hally Huckibe
Couldn't have said it better myself.
There was something about him I didn't like. I now know what it was. . . . . .
Um... so if it were done out of Christian belief (which it may have been) why did he wait till the last day in office to release them and not the first day when he would have paid a cost politically? I think he is not being authentic.
If he was so certain the people of Mississippi were so forgiving, why didn’t he set these scumbags free at the end of his first term?
I will be glad to get behind the Repub Candidate as along as that candidate is not Romney or Paul.
Brown acid.
Won’t say anything about Barbour’s pardons, but back in 1976 a younger Haley Barbour led Gerald Ford’s campaign efforts in the southeastern states.
He helped twist the arms of delegates from Mississippi to put Ford over the top in the close race with Ronald Reagan in 1976.
Barbour was always from the insider establishment RINO wing of the GOP.
Governors who pardon monsters should be civilly and criminally responsible if they commit further crimes after they are released from prison. Easy for a gutless wonder like Barbour to make himself good while putting others at risk. Put his own neck on the line and we’ll see how much Christian charity he actually possesses.
Was anyone executed in Mississippi under this clown’s watch?
If he is willing to pardon murderers because its the Christian thing to do, then why didn’t he just empty the prisons of all the robbers and thieves?
“then why didn’t he just empty the prisons of all the robbers and thieves?”
Because they all weren’t his personal slaves on his plantation.
Apparently he only issued pardons to his friends.
Apparently he only issued pardons to his friends.
That’s like saying I believe in the welfare state because it’s Christian charity.
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