Gov. mansion trusty pardon legislation on hold
Efforts by Coast lawmakers to require public hearings before the governor may pardon an incarcerated person have failed for this legislative session, but the legislators say they’ll bring it up again next year.
The measure was in response to the public outcry that arose in South Mississippi in 2008 after Gov. Haley Barbour freed Michael David Graham, a trusty in the governor’s mansion, who was convicted of shooting his wife, Adrienne Klasky, to death with a 12-gauge shotgun at a busy intersection in Pascagoula.
Locals were upset, partly because the pardon for the 1989 crime came with no notice to local law enforcement and little notice to those involved with the case.
Rep. Brandon Jones, D-Pascagoula, and Sen. David Baria, D-Bay St. Louis, both attorneys, had submitted similar bills that would have required the governor’s office to notify the district attorney’s office where the crime occurred when seeking a pardon.
Sun Herald 4/13/9
Magnolia Tribune
