Mississippi

Assistant prosecutor secretly taped DA accused of aiding criminal defendant

An assistant prosecutor secretly taped conversations with a Mississippi district attorney accused of conspiring to aid a criminal defendant, according to transcripts filed in court on Tuesday. The lawyer for District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith of Hinds County says his client didn’t implicate himself in the conversations, but tape transcripts…

Oct 20, 2016 8:00 AM CDT

Judge should be removed from office for ‘aggression and bigotry,’ state high court says

A Mississippi judge who failed to win re-election last year should nonetheless be sanctioned with removal from office for “aggression and bigotry” he displayed at a flea market, the Mississippi Supreme Court has ruled. The opinion upheld sanctions recommended by the Mississippi Commission on Judicial Performance, Courthouse News Service and…

Oct 19, 2016 2:40 PM CDT

Federal judge is tossed from two cases for repeated failure to rule on pending motions

A federal appeals court has removed a Mississippi federal judge from two cases because of repeated delays in ruling on motions. In the first case, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals removed U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate from a civil suit filed against an electric utility by…

Oct 5, 2016 10:59 AM CDT

Missouri must reveal suppliers of lethal injection drug, 8th Circuit says

Two Mississippi death-row inmates are entitled to find out the suppliers of Missouri’s lethal injection drug pentobarbital in their suit claiming there is a better alternative to Mississippi’s three-drug cocktail. The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday refused to disturb a federal judge’s order that Missouri…

Sep 6, 2016 11:42 AM CDT

Bite-mark expert stands by his testimony, though he can’t recall much about it

A bite-mark expert who claimed to have matched bite marks on an elderly woman’s body to the man accused of her murder didn’t see the need to prepare for a deposition taken after the case was reopened. During the April deposition, the expert, Michael West, was “belligerent, profane, and combative”…

Aug 29, 2016 9:00 AM CDT

Lawyer goes on trial for alleged false oil-spill claims; prosecutors drop several counts

Prosecutors dropped 22 of 95 counts against a Texas lawyer and six co-defendants as their trial began Monday for allegedly falsifying claims in the BP Gulf oil spill. Prosecutors dropped 22 identity document fraud charges against San Antonio lawyer Mikal Watts and six associates, the Biloxi Sun Herald and the…

Jul 19, 2016 10:23 AM CDT

Mississippi DA is arrested for allegedly aiding criminal defendants

A Mississippi district attorney was arrested on misdemeanor charges on Wednesday for allegedly giving help to two criminal defendants despite his position as a prosecutor. Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith was charged after a joint investigation by the Mississippi Attorney General’s office and the FBI, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger,…

Jun 23, 2016 7:30 AM CDT

ACLU sues over Mississippi ‘religious freedom’ law, says it violates landmark SCOTUS marriage ruling

Saying that the “religious freedom” statute set to take effect in Mississippi later this year would impose special “separate but unequal” rules on same-sex married couples, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against a state official Monday. In the suit, Nykolas Alford and Stephen Thomas, a same-sex engaged couple,…

May 9, 2016 3:36 PM CDT

Judge jails public defender for contempt for arguing in court

A Mississippi judge with a history of contention with the local public defender’s office jailed an assistant PD without bond for contempt for much of the day Wednesday, although the lawyer’s boss said he was not disruptive or disrespectful but simply doing his job at a bond hearing. The assistant,…

Apr 15, 2016 2:15 PM CDT

Order blocking state AG’s investigation of Google is vacated by 5th Circuit

A federal appeals court has vacated an injunction that blocked Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood from investigating Google’s alleged failure to combat illegal and harmful activity on the Internet. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (PDF) on Friday, report the Recorder (sub. req.), Courthouse News Service,…

Apr 12, 2016 7:41 AM CDT

New Mississippi law lets those with ‘deeply held religious beliefs’ refuse service to LGBT community

Setting the stage for a showdown between civil rights groups and business owners with religious convictions against same-sex relationships, the governor of Mississippi on Tuesday signed a so-called religious freedom bill into law. More narrowly drafted than similar laws in some other jurisdictions, the Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination…

Apr 5, 2016 2:55 PM CDT

Decades after Supreme Court OK’d interracial marriage, couple says RV park owner won’t rent to them

Interracial marriages have been legal in the state of Mississippi since 1967, following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling Loving v. Virginia, and a year later the Fair Housing Act banned landlords from refusing to rent based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Yet Erica Flores Dunahoo, 40,…

Apr 5, 2016 10:15 AM CDT

Suit over Mississippi’s confederate-themed flag uses language from SCOTUS same-sex marriage case

The Mississippi state flag, which includes a confederate symbol, amounts to hate speech against black people, a recent lawsuit (PDF) argues, and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Carlos Moore, the attorney who filed the case, told the Jackson Free Press that his…

Mar 2, 2016 12:35 PM CST

Found unfit for trial in botched hit on attorney, hospitalized doctor sues over confinement

Found unfit to stand trial in 2014, concerning his role in a claimed plot to hire a hit man to kill a lawyer who represented his wife in a divorce, a Mississippi physician was committed to a mental facility. During a court hearing at that time, Dr. Reb McMichael, chief…

Feb 25, 2016 12:00 PM CST

Man convicted of first-degree murder in shooting of defendant outside Mississippi courthouse

A former firefighter accused of fatally shooting a drug case defendant outside a Mississippi courthouse last year, in the presence of the victim’s lawyer, has been convicted of first-degree murder. In closing arguments, lawyers for William Wells admitted that he killed Kendrick Armond Brown outside the Madison County Courthouse but…

Feb 23, 2016 5:00 PM CST