Pardon case goes to state’s high court
JACKSON, Miss. — With the controversy still burning over the nearly 200 pardons issued by Haley Barbour in his last days in as governor, the Mississippi Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday as to whether the pardons were constitutional.
The arguments concerned only 10 of those pardoned, including the five men who worked at the Governor’s Mansion and the only five people on the pardon list who are still in prison.
But if the court rules in favor of the state attorney general, who is arguing that the pardons violate the state constitution, most of the other pardons would be in jeopardy as well.
The legal fight has been so politically charged that Chief Justice William L. Waller Jr. began the hearing by saying he did not want to hear any grandstanding or “political sound bites.” Jim Hood, the attorney general, is the sole Democrat in statewide office and in recent weeks has denounced Barbour over the pardons.
The motives behind the pardons are not at issue. At the center of the case is a technical argument, concerning a section in the state constitution that gives pardon power exclusively to the governor. The section also states that “no pardon shall be granted until the applicant” publishes a petition for pardon for “thirty days, in some newspaper in the county where the crime was committed.”
The attorney general argues that only 22 of those pardoned had actually met that requirement, and that the pardons of those who had not — including the 10 before the court Thursday — were invalid.
Those pardoned, as well as Barbour, argue that the constitution clearly leaves it solely up to the governor not only to grant pardons but also to decide whether the publication requirement has been satisfactorily met.
The courts, they argue, do not have the constitutional authority to review the governor’s decision in this case. Holding that the pardon power was devised as a check on the judiciary, they argue that the courts cannot overturn a pardon — even if the publication requirement was unmet.