rush was a result of a flood of pardon applications as the clock was counting down toward the end of Haley Barbour's final term as governor. Barbour refused CNN's request for an interview but his spokeswoman, Laura Hipp, issued a statement. In reviewing Mr. Bostick's case, Gov. Barbour took the Parole Board's recommendation into consideration, and he was n't aware of the subsequent charges, she said. Shannon Warnock, chairwoman of the Mississippi Parole Board, issued a statement saying: I can say that Mr. Bostick's application was supported by testimonials from trustworthy and outstanding members of the community. While the reported circumstances of that arrest are troubling, our system of justice does regard everyone as innocent until proved guilty. Linda Smith, Charity's mother, worries her teenage daughter's death has been forgotten in all of this. She struggles to understand how state officials could not have known that the man involved in her daughter's violent crash was the same Harry Bostick who had petitioned for a pardon. She was a person. She was n't just some name on a piece of paper. A beautiful person, said Linda Smith. Her days now are often spent weeping over her daughter's death. She cried throughout most of her interview with CNN as she showed photographs of the beautiful girl with big dreams. Linda Smith described her daughter as an artist with a big