'Uncle Haley' pardoned many with ties to power

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46172675/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/

On a Saturday night in October 1995, a blue Toyota came hurtling down the wrong side of a county road in North Mississippi and crashed head-on into a pickup truck. Scotty Plunk, the driver of the truck, was killed. The driver of the Toyota, 19-year-old Joel Vann, had been drinking so much that he did not remember the accident.

Mr. Vann pleaded guilty to “D.U.I.-death,” and in lieu of jail attended a residential treatment program. This month he was one of 198 people pardoned by Mississippi’s governor, Haley Barbour, as he left office.

It is unclear what persuaded the governor to pardon Mr. Vann; his clemency application contains glowing references and a case study. But the letter to the governor from Mr. Vann’s father, the brother-in-law of a former Republican state committee member and contributor to Mr. Barbour, had a familiar tone.

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In the furor over Mr. Barbour’s pardons — he issued 10 times as many as his four predecessors combined — beneficiaries like Mr. Vann have been overshadowed by others with higher profiles. Among them were four murderers who worked at the Governor’s Mansion and Brett Favre’s brother, who killed a friend in a drunken-driving accident.