HOLY BOONDOGGLE, BATMAN! Or "Has anyone seen our $70M?"

KiOR, the biofuels manufacturer, has four more months to begin repaying its $69.4M loan that the State of Mississippi made to it at the urging of former Gov. Haley Barbour (R - MS).  The State apparently passed up on the opportunity to seize KiOR's Columbus plant, which apparently doesn't work worth a dang anyway.

Read this entirely-too-depressing story here.

Barbour Shakes up the Nuclear Debate

The conflict over storing nuclear waste in Mississippi took an interesting turn Tuesday when former Governor Haley Barbour spoke before a group in Madison to endorse Governor Bryant's plan(s)... whatever they are.

Governor Bryant and the Mississippi Energy Institute have lost control of the messaging campaign around their plans for nuclear waste so they had to call in a favor to Barbour to swoop in and save the day. If there is one thing Barbour likes doing, it's running campaigns. It's not like Bryant and the MEI had to do much convincing; the Butler Snow firm, for whom Barbour works (perhaps the other way around,) is on the board of directors for the MEI.

During his remarks, Barbour also voiced support for the idea of "limited" drilling for natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico. We're now facing the prospect of "limited" nuclear waste storage and "limited" drilling for natural gas off of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Barbour really can't expect us to believe that any type of drilling is going to be limited. I suppose it depends on what his definition of "limited" is.

From Bryant's plans for nuclear waste storage to the possibility of earthquakes as a result of Barbour's natural gas drilling ideas, these proposals by the state's top Republican leaders are looking more and more like a bad deal for our family and friends in South Mississippi.

Still no word from Barbour if any "limited" drilling and/or storage will take place in Yazoo City.

Turnabout's fair play: Mississippians, are you better off than you were 8 years ago?

Back on August 26th, former Gov. Haley Barbour (R) went on CBS's Face the Nation and, seeking to focus the American electorate on the economy, asked the question "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"

Glad you brought that up, Governor.

Thanks, Haley: Mississippi's economy falters again

Just in case anyone was wondering, Mississippi's economy is still the worst in the country.  According to an AP article, newly-released federal statistics show Mississippi's economy shrunk 0.8% in 2011, at a time when only six states saw their economy contract.  In fact, Mississippi's economy performed worse in 2011 than all others except for Wyoming.

But don't worry.  Mississippi can still claim the bottom rung with the lowest per capita economic output at $28,293 per person.  (The national average is $42,070.)

In keeping with the theme, here's a look at Mississippi's unemployment rate over the last 20 years:

CNN blows doors off Barbour's pardon of drunk driver

Wow.  Just...wow.  Those of you who have followed Haley Barbour's Pardongate closely will recall the story of Harry Bostick, a three-time DUI offender who was sitting in jail on a probation revocation when pardoned by Haley Barbour.  The nutshell version is that Bostick had obtained his third DUI in five years, making him a felon.  He was on parole for his third DUI conviction (the felony for which he was pardoned) when he was involved in an accident in which Charity Smith of Okolona, Mississippi, was killed.  Of course, Bostick was driving drunk during the accident.

***BREAKING*** - MS Supreme Court grants petition for interlocutory appeal; keeps TRO in place

I have just received word that the MS Supreme Court has just agreed to hear the arguments surrounding Pardongate. That means that there will be no hearing on Friday. The TRO issued by Judge Tomie Green will remain in effect, however, which may be a signal as to how they view the standing of the judiciary to review the pardons.

In a nutshell, this means that the final resolution to Pardongate may occur sooner rather than later.

Attorney General Hood sets the record straight on Barbour's attempt to shift blame for Pardongate; says Barbour is "a desperate man"

Here is the full text of a press release from the office of Attorney General Jim Hood:

It is unfortunate that former Governor Barbour has made some misrepresentations about the role of our attorney assigned to the Mississippi Department of Corrections. At no time did our Assistant Attorney General assigned to MDOC advise the Governor or any of his assistants that there was no requirement for publication. The comments by former Governor Barbour are a shameful attempt to deflect blame for his office’s failure to confirm that the requirements of the Constitution had been met.

First, the special assistant attorney general, David Scott, who the governor has supposedly relied upon, has only one client, the DOC; he is housed there and works together daily with the Commissioner of Corrections, Chris Epps. He is the MDOC lawyer. Scott is not counsel to the Governor who had his own three staff attorneys advising him.

On November 28, 2011, Scott texted Daryl Neely with the governor’s office and said, “please refer to Section 124 of Constitution regarding pardons and notice”. So, the governor and his staff and his attorneys were given the law at that time and had plenty of time to make sure publications were done properly before his term expired. So what did the governor and his staff do? Nothing. In fact, Daryl Neely told David Scott on November 29th that the governor’s staff had discussed the Constitutional publishing requirements and “decided it wasn’t necessary.”

Not until December 6, after 5:03 p.m., (31 days before the pardons were issued), did Neely text back to David Scott that ““top guy” wants to go ahead and run notices” for mansion trusties, and a few minutes later provided a list of names. The next day, December 7, 30 days before the pardons were actually issued, David Scott confirmed for his client, MDOC, that MDOC would take care of publication for the in-custody inmates. David Scott’s job was to advise MDOC, and their job is to run prisons, not to issue pardons.

Neither David Scott, nor the AG, nor any AG staff ever talked to an inmate or provided legal advice to an inmate. At the direction of DOC, David Scott did in fact refer the Governor’s Office to Section 124, which the Governor chose to ignore. Later, David Scott passed along the ‘Top Guy’s” last minute request that MDOC do the task of getting the publications done.

Finally, the Constitution puts the duty on the convict to make the newspaper publication, saying “no pardon shall be granted until the applicant therefor shall have published for thirty days, in some newspaper in the county where the crime was committed…his petition for pardon….” The failure to comply cannot be excused because the governor took it upon himself and an agency he controls to do the required publications, then botched the job. And his attempt to shift the blame for his failure to a career staff attorney for MDOC, who advised him well in advance of the law’s requirements, is shameful .

I am disappointed to see the former governor out in the national media making untrue statements. This is a sideshow by Tom Fortner and the former Governor to divert attention from the fact that the former Governor has loosed his favored murderers upon the public without any legal authority to do so. These untruths and mischaracterizations are indeed the sign of a desperate man.

Joseph Ozment found and served...in a Laramie, WY, hotel room under a fake name

Investigators with the Attorney General's office have found and served Joseph Ozment, the last remaining pardon recipient to be served with process in the Hinds County Circuit Court case involving Pardongate. Ozment was located in a Laramie, Wyoming, hotel room under an assumed name. According to Attorney General Hood, Ozment was driving his girlfriend's Mercedes-Benz when found, and hit an investigator with it as he tried to avoid service.

Ozment was serving a life sentence for killing a convenience store clerk during an armed robbery at the time of his pardon. Ozment had been serving that time at the Governor's Mansion as a trusty, which apparently came with quite a few privileges. (More on that to come in a separate post.)

Anyway, Ozment now has to check in with the Mississippi Department of Corrections every 24 hours. Failure to do so would result in a warrant being issued for his arrest.

New York Times: List of pardons included many tied to power

Heading into the weekend, the New York Times ran a piece exploring Governor Barbour's personal and political connections to the families of those felons who requested and received pardons. The story draws out several interesting details including a letter from a father of one of the pardon recipients who spent a portion of his plea celebrating the election of two Republican aldermen in Corinth.

After cataloging other notable examples of well connected pardonees, the writers observe:

"...in a state with the highest poverty rate in the nation and where nearly 70 percent of convicts are black, official redemption appears to have been attained disproportionately by white people and the well connected."

The story of Barbour's Pardongate and its impact is still being written. At least one of the subplots is its reinforcement of negative stereotypes of Mississippi. That a cocktail of race, party and cash could free killers early in Mississippi only serves to underscore those parts of our past that we'd rather forget.

Thanks, Haley.

House committee assignments expected tomorrow

All signs point to Speaker Philip Gunn (R-Clinton) announcing his committee chairmanship selections tomorrow morning around 9:00 a.m. In addition, Gunn will assign each of the 122 members to the various committees. These choices will be the most important of Gunn's career in the House thus far. With these appointments, Gunn will have an opportunity to live up to the cooperative tone he set in his acceptance speech. I believe he will do just that.

Here's why:

The most frequent complaint from Republicans over the last 4 years was that Speaker Billy McCoy (D-Rienzi) didn't appoint any Republicans as committee chairs. If Gunn follows McCoy's lead and doesn't appoint any members of the opposing party to committee chairmanships, then he'll appear hypocritical. An appearance of hypocrisy isn't something Gunn can afford right now, as Mississippians are dealing with the fallout from Barbour's Pardongate. (Barbour's pardon record doesn't exactly match the Republican "tough on crime" line.)

There's another dynamic at play here as well, and it has to do with institutional knowledge. Most of it resides over on the Democratic side of the aisle, and that will be important when it comes time to handle intricate health, education, and budget matters. Having Democrats with experience in those areas willing to play ball is going to be vital to doing the work of the House in a timely fashion.

All of the above, coupled with Lt. Gov. Reeves' decision to appoint Democrats to chair important committees, lead me to believe that we will see a fairly even distribution of power at the committee level. Guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Democrats calling for Republicans to join their pardon reform efforts

Mississippi Democratic Party Executive Director Rickey Cole issued the following press release this morning:

JACKSON-Rickey Cole, Executive Director of the Mississippi Democratic Party, praised Democrats in the legislature for their leadership in working to reform Mississippi’s pardon process.

Cole said, “Long before this media circus began, Democrats in the Mississippi House and Senate have been working to protect Mississippi families and improve our system of justice. This will mark the fourth straight year that Democrats have worked to bring openness and fairness to the pardon process. Republicans have killed these bills in the past. I hope they’re finally ready to join together in a bipartisan consensus to do what is right and what the people demand.”

Cole expressed his concern that this might not be the case based on remarks by high-ranking Republican officials in the aftermath of Barbour’s record breaking number of pardon decisions.

"The outgoing governor has the right to do what he sees and what he thinks is good and fair," Brown said. "... And he knows more about the details than I do.”

–Republican Senate Pro Tempore Terry Brown (Clarion Ledger, 1/8/12)

“How does that affect his legacy here? I don't think it does. Of those 200, a lot of them are people that were convicted on selling an ounce of marijuana 20 years ago. They've served their sentence."

--Hinds County Republican Party Chairman Pete Perry (WAPT, 1/11/12)

Cole said, “I’m sorry to hear that the second most powerful Republican in the Senate and the Republican Party Chairman in the state's largest county think that Governor Barbour’s pardon decisions were ‘good and fair.’ Those aren’t the words of a party that has learned its lesson.”

There have been folks asking me to provide quotes from Republicans supporting or excusing Gov. Barbour's pardon spree. Well, the last two should suffice.

Here we go: Clarion-Ledger reports 4 "pardoned" murderers can't be found

Wednesday evening, Hinds County Senior Circuit Court Judge Tomie Green ordered several individuals recently released from prison as part of former Republican Gov. Haley Barbour's prolific pardon spree report their whereabouts to the Mississippi Department of Corrections every 24 hours.  Those individuals are Nathan Kern, David Gatlin, Charles Hooker, Anthony McCray, and Joseph Ozment.  Of those five men, all are convicted murderers except for Kern, who was convicted of robbery.

Well, guess what?  None of the five have contacted MDOC, and no one knows where they might be.  The Clarion-Ledger has a story on it today, in which several justifiably terrified family members of victims are quoted.  In light of the fact that all 5 men are likely to return to prison to complete their sentences, it may be difficult to track them down.

Thanks, Haley.

Another troubling question regarding the pardons

As shown yesterday, there were apparently some efforts by some of the pardon recipients to publish the notices required by Section 124. (The four notices in the Sun-Herald appear to have been published by convicts who were no longer in jail.)

Now here's the question: If notices were in fact run on behalf of people in custody, who paid for them?

Judge Tomie Green orders no further releases for pardons; order focuses on Section 124's language

Attorney General Jim Hood (D) sought an injunction yesterday from Hinds County Senior Circuit Court Judge Tomie Green that would prohibit the Mississippi Department of Corrections from releasing any more of the inmates purportedly pardoned by Gov. Haley Barbour (R). Judge Green granted that motion, and issued a hand-edited order yesterday around 6 p.m., and the Clarion-Ledger has it posted on their site.

The nature of injunctive relief does not leave much time for careful word processing, so often judges will do as Judge Green did here, and edit the proposed order by hand. To me, there are two interesting parts to this order.

First, that Judge Green wrote in the types of crimes Barbour was pardoning. She adds "i.e., murder, manslaughter, rape, armed robbery, aggravated assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, burglary, domestic violence, etc." I wasn't at the hearing, but I'm certain Hood brought up the nature of the crimes being excused by Barbour. Here, Green seems to be letting the respondents know that the nature of the crimes committed by these purported pardon recipients makes the matter one of larger import than if they had been, say, guilty of possession of cocaine.

Second, Judge Green underlines the portion of Section 124 that reads "no pardon shall be granted until the applicant therefor shall have published for thirty days, in some newspaper in the county where the crime was committed, and in case there be no newspaper published in said county, then in an adjoining county, his petition for pardon, setting forth the reasons why such pardon should be granted." That shows that the Defendants need to be prepared to argue that the publications either happened or aren't required, and they're going to have a tough time if they want to argue the latter.

Today Show covers Haley Barbour's Pardongate (video)

Rep. David Baria (D-Bay St. Louis) and Attorney General Jim Hood (D) are interviewed in this story about Gov. Haley Barbour's Pardongate, which NBC titled "Mississippi Mess":

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

***BREAKING*** - AG Jim Hood will seek injunction stopping release of "pardoned" prisoners

In a press conference currently being held, Attorney General Jim Hood (D) is announcing that he will seek an injunction that would prevent those apparently pardoned by outgoing Governor Haley Barbour (R) from being released from prison.  At issue is the procedure outlined in Section 124 of the Mississippi Constitution of 1890, mentioned here last night.  In particular, it does not appear that many of the pardons were issued in accordance with the constitutional requirement that a pardon petition be published for 30 days prior to a pardon being issued.

For example, take a look at the Sun-Herald announcements found here.  None of those were posted 30 days prior to January 10, 2012, and would therefore likely be unconstitutional.

In addition, AG Hood has asked MDOC Commissioner Chris Epps to refrain from releasing anyone from MDOC custody on such a "pardon" until the constitutionality of the purported pardon can be determined.  Those who have been released may be rearrested.

Thanks, Haley.

The New York Times covers Barbour's Pardongate

Here's the NYT article, with new quotes and this comparison of past governors' pardons:

Other Mississippi governors have issued full pardons to people convicted of murder — Kirk Fordice, for example, issued two such pardons before he left office in 2000 after two terms — but none have issued so many pardons to so many criminals.

Governor Fordice issued only 13 full pardons; Gov. Ray Mabus (1988-92) issued four; and Mr. Barbour’s immediate predecessor, Gov. Ronnie Musgrove (2000-4) issued only one, to a man convicted of marijuana possession. They also granted lesser degrees of clemency, like suspended sentences and commutations, but even counting all of those, they did not come close to Mr. Barbour.

Thanks, Haley.