Radley Balko pokes around Gov. Barbour's pardons

Radley Balko's got a piece in Slate entitled "Haley Barbour's Bizarre Pardon Record."  I don't have the time to delve into it here, with it being the holiday season and the reopening of the King Edward, but I highly recommend the read, and I want your thoughts on it.  Especially interesting to me is the apparent abrupt change in Gov. Barbour's policy on never giving pardons.

I've added a blog to our blog list

Radley Balko's been a friend for awhile now, and I have no idea why I didn't add his blog, The Agitator, before now.  But there it is, over there on the right.  For those of you who don't know who Radley is, he's an investigative reporter for Reason Magazine, which is a libertarian-leaning publication.  He has worked extensively on cases involving perceived prosecutorial misconduct and flawed forensic science. 

Corey Maye's conviction is REVERSED!

First off, CONGRATULATIONS BOB EVANS!!!!!!!!!!!  Bob Evans is a friend, a respected legislator, and one hell of a lawyer.  Second, congrats, Covington & Burling, who lent lawyers to the case.  Finally, thanks to Radley Balko and Reason Magazine.  They covered this matter from the get-go.  They even produced a spot on Reason.tv about this matter, "Mississippi Drug War Blues: The Case of Cory Maye".  The Radley Balko article on Cory Maye is here, and it's a very good read.

Background after the jump, and analysis in a later post, perhaps as early as tomorrow.

Radley Balko pens another excellent column for Reason Magazine

Radley Balko, known primarily around these parts for his work on the Dr. Steven Hayne front, has put together a good read on something that I find particularly troubling in our society today: the growing need to find someone criminally responsible for any tragedy.

In his latest article, Balko writes about the troubling case of Kevin Kadamus, a Vermont father who accidentally shot his son while turkey hunting. Balko's paints a picture in which the populous seems to be screaming for "justice" when confronted with a horrible accident. Balko's point is that we, as a society, place prosecutors in a very awkward position:

When was the last time you read a big story about your local district attorney declining to bring charges? It happens, of course. But it isn't covered. Even rarer, when was the last time a prosecutor was praised for such restraint? (The one exception might be police-involved shootings.) The truth is that prosecutors are praised, reelected, and promoted based on the cases they win, and on the number of people they put away.

This is a fundamental problem with our justice system, I believe. We ask the public to choose prosecutors, but the public has a poor view of what we as a society actually ask the chosen prosecutor to do. Thus, the prosecutor is faced with an oath that requires him to be a minister of justice, and employers (the people) who want him to find an evil motive where none exists.

Reason Magazine runs with Hayne DPS blog post

Radley Balko, a consistent and thoughtful voice on the Dr. Steven Hayne issue, picked up this blog's post on Dr. Hayne's 2006 "Chief State Pathologist" contract with Mississippi's Department of Public Safety. Here's his article.