The Paterson administration will say little about the decision-making process or how many pardons the governor expects to issue.
But an initial affinity for the Baptist preacher-turned-governor turned into suspicion, for some, at his smooth-talking ways, particularly over the many pardons he issued.
Other Mississippi governors have issued full pardons to people convicted of murder — Kirk Fordice, for example, issued two such pardons before he left office in 2000 after two terms — but none have issued so many pardons to so many criminals.
Fields' political enemies charged him with corruption and chastised him for issuing too many pardons.
It's the action of a much more angry, much more fearful Trump trying to get us used to the idea of pardons ― many, many pardons ― which almost always come in the last weeks of a president's term and certainly not in the first year.
Thus far, President Obama has made only begrudging use of it, granting fewer pardons and commutations than any of his predecessors since at least President McKinley, who during two years in office granted five times as many pardons as Obama has as of today.
