Judge delays ruling on pardoned inmates

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - A Mississippi judge has delayed a decision on whether to invalidate some pardons issued by Haley Barbour in
his final days as governor.

Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie Green issued the bench ruling Monday. The state attorney general's office says it needs more time to prepare.

Attorney General Jim Hood has challenged some of Barbour's pardons on the grounds that they failed to meet the state constitutional requirement of publishing a legal notice for 30 days in a local newspaper.

Hood wants the pardons to be invalidated and the former trusties returned to prison. But the vast majority of the people who could lose their pardons had already served their sentences and had been out of prison for years, in some cases for decades, before Barbour's actions.