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After issuing just eight pardons in his first seven years, Barbour pardoned 208 convicts, 41 of them murderers, sex offenders or child molesters, during his last 48 hours in office. Barbour notes that 90% of the people he pardoned weren’t in prison, but four murderers have been released. And by expunging their records, they can now legally buy guns, just as the sex offenders he pardoned no longer need to give their names to the sex offender registry.

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This isn’t the first time opponents have been outraged by Barbour’s pardons. He gave four of his eight prior pardons to convicted murderers, all of whom were participants in the “trusty” program, which employs convicts at the governor’s mansion.
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Clearly, the trusty program has left a mark on Barbour: four of the murderers freed in recent days were also trusties. One, David Gatlin, who shot and killed his wife while she held their two-month-old child, was denied parole twice in 2010.

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After Barbour said 13 of those pardoned were saddling the state with heavy medical bills, local news outlets picked apart his claim, reporting that the cost to taxpayers was “negligible.” Barbour also said he chose to grant clemency to some convicts rather than commuting their sentences “to allow them to find gainful employment or acquire professional licenses as well as hunt and vote.” As noted at the top of Jackson’s 6 p.m. ABC News broadcast on Thursday, that decision also restored violent criminals’ access to guns. http://swampland.time.com/2012/01/13/haley-barbours-pardons-why-no-one
-in-mississippi-is-in-a-forgiving-mood/#ixzz1jN6baLIl he goes happily back to being a lobbyist, murderers are free and can buy guns, and sex offenders have no record. Bastard. What a world!

I'd just love to know the intentions behind this--which we probably never will. Surely he's not that stupid? He had to have done it for a reason, but I for one can't fathom WHAT.