For generations, certain convicted killers in Mississippi’s prisons have been rewarded for good behavior with work details at the Governor’s Mansion. By custom, governors have rewarded them further by reducing their sentences.
Tradition or not, Republican Gov. Haley Barbour created an uproar earlier this year by suspending the sentence of 54-year-old Michael Graham, who was serving a life sentence for murdering his ex-wife in 1989.
“Historically, most of the people who have worked at the Governor’s Mansion are trusties from our penitentiary system. That goes back decades, probably back into the 19th century,” Barbour said in a recent interview. Four such inmates work at the mansion now.
Trusties are prisoners who earn privileges through good behavior. There was even a time, years ago, when inmates known as “trusty shooters” were given guns and allowed to watch over other prisoners at Parchman, the notorious prison farm in the Mississippi Delta.
Magnolia Tribune
