Haley Barbour pardons: Why were the forgiven so disproportionately white? – CSMonitor.com
Out of a total of 222 acts of clemency given by Barbour during his tenure – 156 of which Attorney General Jim Hood has subsequently argued may be constitutionally invalid because of public notice violations – two-thirds benefited white prisoners. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the state’s prison population is black.
On its face, the disparities immediately raise questions about whether the Mississippi pardon system is inherently racist. Some critics have called on the US Justice Department to investigate Barbour’s pardons on the racial disparities alone, since such broad inequalities could point to a violation of the Constitution’s equal protection clause.
This is the same guy who grew up while Mississippi was burning and didn’t really think there was anything amiss.
