Barnes names career penal official, Mike Light, as fifth clemency board member

ATLANTA - Governor Barnes turned to a career penal official Monday to fill the remaining vacancy on the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. <br> <br> The governor chose 46-year-old Mike Light of Lawrenceville. <br> <br> Light will be sworn-in Wednesday. <br> <br> A shake-up at the clemency agency began last month when Barnes announced that two of the five members -- Walter Ray, the chairman, and Bobby Whitworth -- had resigned amid a state investigation. <br> <br> He immediately named then-Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Milton ``Buddy&#39;&#39; Nix to fill one of the positions but said he would make the second appointment later. That already has raised legal concerns. <br> <br> When the board, sitting with just four of its five members, refused to grant clemency to convicted killer Wallace Fugate the third, the condemned man&#39;s attorneys persuaded a judge to issue a stay on grounds Fugate deserved a clemency hearing before a board with all five members present. <br> <br> The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments on the issue. <br> <br> Light began his criminal justice career as an investigator for the Board of Pardons and Paroles in 1980 and currently is executive assistant to the commissioner of the Department of Corrections. <br> <br> Ray and Whitworth, the two former members of the board, are under investigation over allegations they accepted money to lobby legislators on behalf of a company that supervises probationers.