Here's a sampling of the extensive news coverage:
"Barbour's Mississippi pardons unusually bold, law experts say," by Joseph Ax for Reuters, via the Chicago Tribune.
While most of the Republican governor's pardons were granted to defendants who had already finished serving their sentences, 26 current inmates were also given pardons, including several convicted in killings.
"It's the combination of things that make it unusual," said P.S. Ruckman, an associate professor of political science at Rock Valley College in Illinois and an expert in pardons. "Pardoning people as you leave office isn't that unusual. But pardoning so many of them at once?"
"The way he did it, he's getting the heat he deserves, I think," Ruckman added.
The move prompted the office of Governor Phil Bryant, who served as Barbour's lieutenant governor and took office on Tuesday, to announce support for a state constitutional amendment to tweak the governor's clemency powers. A judge has also suspended releases of newly pardoned prisoners.
Typically, governors would offer a commutation, which reduces the length of a sentence, rather than a full pardon for convicts still in jail, experts said. A pardon restores certain civil rights, such as the ability to own a gun or obtain state licenses - rights Barbour referred to in explaining his actions.
"These days, if people who are serving sentences do get a full pardon, it's almost invariably because of some suggestion of innocence," said Margaret Colgate Love, who has written a book on pardons.
"Haley Barbour pardons spark review," by MJ Lee at Politico.
“Governor Phil Bryant has asked Senator Michael Watson, Chairman for the Senate Constitution Committee, to review the current law as it regards to pardons, how it allows the governor to make these type of decisions, and whether we need to address the wording better in a constitutional amendment,” Bryant’s spokesman Mick Bullock said in a statement Thursday, according to Reuters.
“The governor believes a constitutional amendment is the right way to address such an important issue,” Bullock added.
Bryant was sworn into office as the 64th governor of Mississippi on Tuesday.
"Barbour's pardons stir outrage in Mississippi," by Judy Keen for USA Today.
"This is literally a travesty of justice," says John Dedousis, a physician in Bayonne, N.J., whose sister, Lisa, was one of two people killed in a 2009 car wreck caused by Jackson socialite Karen Irby, who was drunk. Barbour changed her 18-year manslaughter sentence to house arrest. Dedousis created a Facebook page, Victims of Mississippi Pardons, to call for an investigation.
Barbour, 64, a Republican, served two terms as Mississippi governor and could not run a third time because of term limits. He announced last April that he would not seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Barbour said in a statement Wednesday that some people "misunderstood" the clemency and pardon process. About 90% of those affected were no longer in custody, he said, and his actions were meant to "allow them to find gainful employment or acquire professional licenses as well as hunt and vote."
"Changes due for pardons," by Phil West for the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
Gov. Phil Bryant and legislators are considering three ways to curb the governor's nearly unlimited power to pardon criminals in light of former governor Haley Barbour's early release of about 200 inmates, the chairman of the Senate Constitution Committee said Thursday.
Bryant and legislators want to narrow the governor's power of pardon without removing it altogether, said Constitutional Committee chairman Michael Watson, R-Pascagoula.
"We want to make sure we do something smart, that's not knee-jerk," Watson said. "I understand the pardoning powers of the governor are important. We don't want to completely bar all those. Some states have done that."
After meeting with Bryant, Watson said legislators are looking at three potential ways to limit the governor's powers:
Legislation that would bar the Department of Corrections from allowing violent criminals and sex offenders from working at the governor's mansion where they can get cozy with the governor and his family.
A constitutional amendment that would require favorable recommendations from the parole board before an inmate could be considered for pardon.
Limit which type of offenders could be considered by the governor for parole.
"Outgoing Gov. Haley Barbour's pardons shock Mississippi," by Richard Fausset in the Los Angeles Times.
Terrance Winters of Yazoo City, Miss., voted for Haley Barbour in the past, and while he gives the ex-governor a mixed grade these days, particularly on economic matters, he's always given Barbour points for political shrewdness.
Which is why Winters, a 31-year-old cook at a barbecue restaurant, is flummoxed by the mess that Barbour left behind after stepping down from office this week.
"I actually don't know what he was thinking," Winters said.
That is a question most of Mississippi, and the political world far beyond it, is asking.
"Mississippi's new governor supports amendment to cut clemency powers," by Geoff Pender of McClatchy News via the Bellingham Herald.
Bryant's comments come amid a firestorm outgoing Gov. Haley Barbour created when he granted clemency to more than 200 convicted criminals in his final days in office. His lame-duck clemency freed several violent criminals early this week and would have freed more before state Attorney General Jim Hood got a court to grant a temporary injunction halting their release. Hood says some of Barbour's pardons may have violated the state Constitution's requirement that notice of pardon requests be published in newspapers for 30 days prior.
"I say have a constitutional amendment - let the people vote on it," Bryant said. "I'm a big proponent of letting the people decide things."
And:
A constitutional amendment requires a three-fifths majority vote from the Legislature, then ratification by Mississippi voters.
"We want to target sex crimes and violent crimes - really restrict any pardons there," said Watson. He said a draft of the legislation could be ready by as early as next week.
"Experts: Barbour pardons appear done in 'haste,' lack key information," by Miranda Leitsinger at MSNBC.
Many of the more than 200 pardons by Haley Barbour during his last day as Mississippi's governor seemed to have been done in haste, with information missing from the clemency warrants -- which did not have the “look of full technical and procedural regularity,” experts say.
Sentencing information for many of those pardoned, given clemency or granted early release in one of Barbour's final acts as governor was not included on many of the clemency warrants. And, one of the documents even had a semicolon instead of the date the person was discharged on, said P.S. Ruckman Jr., an associate professor of political science at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Ill., who reviewed each of the executive orders.
A typical presidential pardon, said Ruckman, would include standard information, such as offense committed and when the crime occurred.
"So I went to those warrants expecting to find that kind of standard information and ... most of them had maybe, I would say, half of that information. The rest of them were missing some date, one way or another, or some piece of information, like not telling you what the sentence was,” he said.
"When you don’t know how severe the punishment was, then you know, I guess you could be of such a mind to say, well, he was hiding that information so a standard person ... couldn’t kind of see how egregious some of these offenses were," he added.
But Ruckman said he didn't think that was the case. "I think it was just a matter of they were in a rush and they were pumping these things out fast, and so they just didn’t bother to fine track down that information and, or, to write it in the clemency warrant."
Earlier coverage begins with the preceding post.
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