Barbour: Rail line must be moved
By Kathleen Williams

http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060422/NEWS01/604220304/1002

"In other matters, Barbour said that a pardon for Clyde Kennard, ... was not the "proper remedy for a deceased person."

"A pardon is to restore the rights of someone who is alive," Barbour said. But at least 10 other governors have issued posthumous pardons, and in 1999, Bill Clinton became the first president to extend such a pardon.

Barbour recently made a proclamation in Kennard's honor, saying that if Kennard was alive, he would have been pardoned.

"It's all about symbolism," Barbour said. "This is a guy who should have been pardoned."

Kennard's family and friends, who attended the ceremony in Jackson, seemed "pleased" with what he had done, Barbour said.

But Kennard's niece Valerie Kennard, 50, who was not at the ceremony, said a pardon would only be a start in cleansing the state's sins in her uncle's case.

"They knew it was a lie from the beginning, and I don't appreciate the state of Mississippi saying he don't deserve a pardon," she said. "I know a pardon's not going to bring him back or bring back the years he spent in jail ... but they were wrong then and they're still wrong now."