Miss. Supreme Court rules Barbour pardons valid

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. Good. The politics around this was ugly.

Governors (and the president) have the power to pardon (after the fact) and commute sentences (still being served). In a country that has the highest imprisonment rates in the world, it is a power that is used too rarely.

The politics around this was all outrage about the pardons, and it was a chance for the Democratic attorney general to try to make hay against the outgoing Republican governor, and maybe burnish his own election credentials. Now, I don't like Haley Barbour, or Republican governors in general, but pardoning some prisoners is within his power and shows some mercy from the state.

What could have been an opportunity for a discussion of our sentencing practices became a partisan bash-fest.

The question shouldn't be why is Barbour pardoning so many prisoners, but why aren't other governors and Obama pardoning more? I think it was this last Christmas that Obama issued his first commutation of one of those outrageous crack sentences. He had pardoned people before, but the commutation actually got someone out of prison who didn't need to be there.

And of the 208 people whose sentences he pardoned or commuted, 198 were already done serving their sentences.