Mississippi Supreme Court again upholds pardons (by Haley Barbour, included murderers)

The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday denied the state attorney general's attempt to have it reconsider its assent to controversial pardons -- several of them for convicted killers -- issued earlier this year by outgoing Gov. Haley Barbour.

The decision was made "without comment," court spokeswoman Beverly Pettigrew Kraft said by e-mail.

Attorney General Jim Hood has been a harsh and persistent critic of the 214 pardons and clemencies issued by Barbour in January, shortly before the governor left office.

Besides questioning whether some convicted of violent crimes should so easily walk free, he has argued some of the pardons were invalid because they did not meet a state constitutional requirement that notices be filed each day for 30 days in newspapers based where the crimes were committed.

full: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/17/us/mississippi-pardons/index.html