It seems a Memphis TV station has obtained his resume.  The headline tells the best part of the story (and, if one calls the number listed for Gov. Barbour, you get the voicemail for [...]]]> Folks may remember Mr. Ozment, the murderer Haley Barbour pardoned who was last seen being served with process in Wyoming.

It seems a Memphis TV station has obtained his resume.  The headline tells the best part of the story (and, if one calls the number listed for Gov. Barbour, you get the voicemail for Mrs. Barbour.  I’m not kidding).

Ozment also tumpets his experience directing classes at the Marshall County Correctional Center, a commercial prison run by Wackenhut.  He does not mention which side of the bars he was on while working in that capacity.  It has lots about his college experience, but nothing about the two decades in stir).

h/t Razor in comments.

The WLBT headline (to the story with the quote by family member of a murder victim, above) is hilarious:

Pardoned Trustee Living With “AntiChrist” in Alabama

This is a strange one.  A [...]]]>

“It’s not safe. David is a cold-blooded murderer and he’s living with a self-proclaimed antichrist. That’s dangerous,” said Tammy Gatlin’s sister, Tiffany Ellis-Brewer.

The WLBT headline (to the story with the quote by family member of a murder victim, above) is hilarious:

Pardoned Trustee Living With “AntiChrist” in Alabama

This is a strange one.  A TV reporter went to the house of one Ernest Jacks in Alabaster, Alabama to talk to David Gatlin, who had been given a pardon from a life sentence by Governor Barbour.  Gatlin had moved to Alabaster to live with his friend, Jacks.  While the reporter was there, Jacks talked on camera.  The Birminham news reports:

Ernest Jacks Jr., 68, of 121 Kentwood Way, was arrested this afternoon after he threatened to bomb Arizona and Florida to rid those states of senior citizens on Social Security during a television interview. He also called himself the “anti-Christ” in the report that aired Wednesday on Fox 6. …

Jacks is being transported to the Shelby County jail, where he will be held on $15,000 bond.

“Threats of harming people is not something that’s acceptable in our society,” Rigney said. “He caused alarm and fear in the community, and he’ll have to answer for those statements.”

I have never heard of an en banc argument set just over a week out!

Tom Fortner seems to have got their attention.

Update:

Also worth reading are the exhibits, which include a number of documents from the circuit [...]]]> As I noted, Tom Fortner has sought an emergency appeal of the pardon case, which Kingfish has up.  His papers present an elaboration of the argument he made in his motion to dismiss, and are worth reading for that.

Also worth reading are the exhibits, which include a number of documents from the circuit court proceeding.

First, the second amended complaint was verified, although the allegations are such that I would not call that a personal knowledge verification.  It does allege facts about the individual defendants, their pardons, and to what extent there had been publication.  So it comes a lot closer to alleging the underlying facts.

Second, the first hearing is in its own way as amazing as the second.

General Hood does acknowledge (contrary to what is in the TRO itself and his requests for relief) that the burden just might be on him and not the pardonees.  He said:

I’d like to take the position that, you know, they got a duty to come forward.

But in all fairness I think they have a valid pardon until we prove otherwise.

Then there’s this startling exchange in which General Hood explains how he took “the safest route:”

THE COURT: You’ve talk about thein terms of what needs to be alleged for an injunction at this point.␣ And if the court were to issue an injunction and set a hearing, is there any detriment that would occur to the five people or what do you propose to those five people who were released on Sunday so as to not jeopardize them should the pardons be valid?

ATTORNEY GENERAL HOOD: Your Honor, I wanted to treat them as if it was an invalid pardon and they had escaped and have them arrested today. But our lawyers looked at it every which way we could and so we found the safest option was to ask the court to order that they report immediately to the Department of Corrections and continue to report every 24 hours, and then show up for a hearing to prove or show some proof that they may have actually met the publication requirements.␣ So that was the safest route to avoid a 1983 action that we could determine.

I would say whoever talked him out of just putting out some arrest warrants for recipients of facially valid pardons was giving him good legal advice.

We also get Judge Green announcing that (without hearing from anyone, really, in the way of legal arguments) that she’s got this fully decided and narrowed the issues:

The Constitution is clear.␣ It is not ambiguous. There are condition precedent and the publication is required to be published by the applicant or on behalf of the applicants, which it-means that attorneys could file them, family members could file them. They should be provided back either to the MDOC, the parole board or the Governor, and there should be some record to indicate compliance. And as such, that’s what the court will be looking for on next Monday.

While on the subject of due process, General Hood opines that pardonnes, faced with the prospect of incarceration and the loss of what I would have thought was a fairly valuable right nevertheless “don’t have a right to an attorney in this type of civil action…”

The third document of interest to me is the order overruling Tom Fortner’s motion to dismiss.  It raised, among other issues, the one most interesting to me:  That a court has no power to question the governor’s excercise of the pardon power.  Judge Green’s order has this passage in it:

The court also finds that pardons are acts of grace and mercy, thus, they do not automatically confer due process rights upon the Defendants, except to allow a defendant an opportunity to present evidence and to show that the applicant, has met constitutional prerequisites to the issuance of a purported pardon.

The Court further finds that the Complaint for Injunctive Relief is not a challenge to the Governor’s authority to pardon, but addresses the issue of whether a pardon exists or has been granted, n accordance with constitutional mandates.

It is well-settled that the Governor may, by proper pardon, extend mercy or forgiveness to murderers, rapists, child molesters, or any other persons convicted in the courts. The review by this Court will in no way challenge, question, or interfere with the Governor’s motives, reasonableness or judgment in granting such pardon.

I would have thought that, to get relief– which requires showing likelihood of success– the attorney general would have had to show that a specific defendant got a pardon and he didn’t advertise [...]]]> Here are the complaint, motion for a temporary restraining order, and the order granting the TRO in the pardons case, from Attorney General Hood’s webpage.

I would have thought that, to get relief– which requires showing likelihood of success– the attorney general would have had to show that a specific defendant got a pardon and he didn’t advertise (laying aside the legal argument over whether a court can even inquire into that).  I don’t know what happened at that first hearing, but here’s what’s in the papers:

• The complaint alleges that some of the defendants may not have advertised.  The motion alleges the same thing.  There’s no suggestion of who might have failed to advertise, just the general statement.  Nothing is sworn, and the only attached exhibit is a list of the folks pardoned.
• The complaint and motion then ask as relief that the defendants be held in jail (if they aren’t out already) and that those already out be ordered to appear at the next hearing, and that all of them be made to prove they advertised.  In other words, it says “hold ‘em till they prove I’m not likely to succeed.”
• The restraining order states that “some or all” of the pardonees failed to advertise, but doesn’t suggest who that might be.  It also orders the pardonees to prove they published.

The complaint also invokes the court’s power to use the temporary restraining order to “preserve the status quo,” a commonly held view of the use of a TRO (as opposed to the actual formal purpose, to prevent irreparable injury, something that is mentioned in the motion without elaboration).

I’d be curious other lawyerly reactions, in comments.

Update:

Tom Fortner has filed for an emergency appeal; in his filing (which Kingfish has put up on his site) there are a lot more of the pleadings and orders, and much of interest.  One thing that you can read is the transcript of the first essentially ex parte hearing; there was some hand-waiving toward proof (that is, Attorney General Hood talked about what he’d learned about publication for some of the pardonees, and some unsponsored exhibits were admitted).  I’m going to put up some thought about Fortner’s filing in a separate post.

“Please tell Uncle Haley that one [...]]]>

“Maggi and I wanted to begin by thanking you and Marsha for a lovely and special lunch at the Mansion last Tuesday,” began a letter to the governor by the family friend of Doug Hindman, one pardon applicant. “It was very interesting to see the historical quilt upstairs.”

There’s also this:

Mr. Barbour declined to comment on the pardons, but a spokeswoman said that every application had been treated alike. “If you were poor or rich, you were told to go through the parole board process,” said the spokeswoman, Laura Hipp.

Well, yes, there’s a process.  Did it turn out the same for everyone?

Finally, there’s a nod to this blog for writing about the Bostick pardon.  I greatly appreciate the acknowledgment.

Pardon files are missing or don’t exist for four convicted killers and another man who [...]]]> The leded begins “pardon files are missing” but reading the article carefully, I think what it says is “The state responded to a public records request for pardon files by saying there aren’t any.”   Here’s Holbrook Mohr’s story:

Pardon files are missing or don’t exist for four convicted killers and another man who worked as trusties at the Governor’s Mansion and were pardoned by former Gov. Haley Barbour.

The Associated Press made public records requests for such documents…

I’ve been convinced since the beginning that a careful look at these pardons– where they originated, who was seeking them, what political connections might have been involved– would produce some interesting stories, and I have the impression there are a number of folks working on it.

I’m not sure of the usual beat of R.L. Nave [...]]]> Mississippi Supreme Court justice Taylor McElroy was a circuit judge and before that mayor of Oxford.  His knowledge of politics (particularly local varieties) was long and deep.  About newspaper coverage of court proceedings, he commented, “They always send a sports reporter to cover court.”

I’m not sure of the usual beat of R.L. Nave of the Jackson Free Press, but it’s certainly not legal matters.  It’s hard to count the things he gets wrong in his  or her article about the hearing before Judge Green.  He confuses motions to disqualify Attorney General Hood and transfer the case back to the original judge as “repeatedly tr[ying] to have the case thrown out.”  He states “attorneys did not file the motions properly” when it was clear on the record that they filed the motions with the clerk of the court (which is how one files motions properly) but that Judge Green was unhappy because copies were sent to her court administrator by email (not required to “properly file” with the court but certainly a way to send courtesy copies to a judge) when her court administrator was having a day off.

The article also buys in entirely to Judge Green’s hostility to the efforts of the lawyers for pardonees to do their jobs, and to her hostility to lawyers who had to respond quickly to a no-notice restraining order just days or possibly hours after their clients had been served.  It raises the ante on that hostility with smarmy characterization of the lawyers appearing in support of the pardons, starting with the headline– “Pardongate’s Fancy Lawyer Tricks.”  The remark that “one pradonee, Ozment, did not appear at the hearing” is particularly misleading because the assistant attorney general speaking at the hearing made absolutely clear that Ozment had not been served with process and therefore had no notice of the hearing.

Update:

The author of the Jackson Free Press article has responded to my post in comments to his article (I can’t see how to directly link to his comment, but if you click on the link above, you can read it).  Donna Ladd of the JFP has responded in comments, and there is some dialogue with me there.

Essentially, his response is that Judge Green said things that support what he wrote:  ”First, the article does not say that attorneys filed their motions improperly, as stated on NMC. The article points out that Judge Green was agitated that the motions were not filed properly.”

I’m having a more than small problem parsing that one.  The article says:  ”Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Tomie Green’s visible agitation that attorneys did not file the motions properly–one lawyer emailed documents to Green’s court administrator…”  Anyone at the hearing knew that Tom Fortner stated he had filed them with the clerk and sent them to the court administrator.   So I’m left with a misleading account (I’m assuming the author could have confirmed that the motions were filed with the clerk, and that is how it is done…) that simply accepts what one participant (Judge Green) said unquestioningly in spite of substantial evidence (others saying something different) to the contrary.  I suppose I had the advantage of knowing how things actually worked.

Finally, there’s this in the author’s comment:  ”As for the smarmy headline, I throw myself on the mercy of the court.”  I’m tripping over the word smarmy.  First, this was my least favorite article.  I get to say that on my blog.  Second, I think there’s a little bit of projection here, given the headline of the JFP story:  ”Pardongate’s Fancy Lawyer Tricks”.

As a lawyer, I’ve got a problem watching lawyers doing their job and dealing with a difficult and unreasonable judge characterized with the words “fancy” and “tricks.”  A pretty smarmy sliming, as far as I can see.