RIDGELAND, Miss. - Former Gov. Haley Barbour says he's "very comfortable" with his decision to grant pardons or other clemency to more than 200 people in the last days in office.
Barbour said Friday during his first interview on the pardons that nearly 190 of the people who got pardons or other reprieves had already been released from prison.
Barbour said only 10 have been or will be fully released from prison. Barbour said it's a tradition in Mississippi for governors to free the trusties who worked at the Governor's Mansion. He said corrections officials pick those people, who are usually men convicted or crimes of passion.
Barbour said he's "fully confident the pardons and other clemency I have given are all valid."
"Let's get the facts straight. Of the 215 who received clemency, 189 were not let out of jail. They were already out of jail," he said.
Barbour said Mississippians are mostly Christian people.
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"I believe in second chances and I try hard to be forgiving," he said. "I am very comfortable and totally at peace with these pardons."
Barbour said he didn't anticipate the pardons would become centered on politics, though he expected some backlash.
Barbour pardoned 203 criminals convicted of murder, rape, manslaughter and armed robbery and more.
(Credit: CBS News)Barbour said only 10 have been or will be fully released from prison. Barbour said it's a tradition in Mississippi for governors to free the trusties who worked at the Governor's Mansion. He said corrections officials pick those people, who are usually men convicted or crimes of passion.
"What I didn't think was that politicians would go out and tell the public we let 200 people out of the penitentiary. I didn't anticipate this would be all about politics," said Barbour, a Republican who left office earlier this week.
On Wednesday, Democrat Attorney General Jim Hood went to court to seek a halt to the releases, saying his investigation showed some of the inmates hadn't completed a constitutionally required notification to the public in areas where their crimes were committed.
Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie Green ordered that the release of 21 inmates be put on hold until it could be determined they met the requirements.
On Friday, Barbour said some of the same Mississippi politicians who attacked him had also asked him to pardon people.
He charged that Hood, the only Democrat in statewide office, didn't object when Barbour's predecessor, Democrat Ronnie Musgrove, released convicted killers who worked at the Governor's Mansion.
Barbour said his father died when he was 2 years old. And when his grandfather, a judge, became disabled, an inmate was assigned to help him.
"I watched the power of a second chance and what it did for Leon Turner," he said.
Barbour often evoked his Christian faith during his statement.
"You do not want to take away hope and the opportunity for a second chance, particularly when you see what our religion says," he said.
Barbour said the Mississippi Department of Corrections picks inmates who work at the Governor's Mansion. Typically, they are men who committed crimes of passion.
Corrections officials assign them, he said, because they are not likely to commit another violent crime and make good workers.
Barbour, 64, is a former Republican National Committee chairman. He considered seeking the GOP nomination for president but decided in April 2011 that he would not do so.
He now on the paid speakers' circuit and works for a Jackson-area law firm and for BGR, the Washington lobbying firm he founded two decades ago.
Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsMain/~3/kopWTtaeWe8/
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