In a case in which the state’s Attorney General had asked for an exe­cu­tion date of March 27, the Mississippi Supreme Court instead threw out Michelle Byrom​’s mur­der con­vic­tion and death sen­tence and ordered a new tri­al just four days lat­er. The case was plagued with numer­ous prob­lems, includ­ing inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion, crit­i­cal evi­dence not pre­sent­ed to the jury, con­fes­sions by anoth­er defen­dant, and the pros­e­cu­tion’s lack of con­fi­dence in its own sto­ry of what actu­al­ly hap­pened. In its order revers­ing the con­vic­tion, the court described Byrom’s case as ​“extra­or­di­nary and extreme­ly rare.” Prosecutors said that Byrom hired a friend of her son’s to mur­der her hus­band, despite sev­er­al con­fes­sions from her son, who said he killed his father because he snapped from years of abuse. The jury that con­vict­ed Michelle Byrom nev­er heard evi­dence from a foren­sic psy­chol­o­gist who had told the judge that Byrom’s son had con­fessed to the mur­der, nor were they pre­sent­ed with two let­ters from Byrom’s son describ­ing why he mur­dered his father. Byrom’s son and his friend pled guilty to con­spir­a­cy in the crime and are now free after serv­ing time in prison. David Voisin, an attor­ney advis­ing Byrom’s legal team, said, ​“We are grate­ful to the Mississippi Supreme Court in rec­og­niz­ing the extreme injus­tice in this case and tak­ing the swift and extra­or­di­nary step of vacat­ing Michelle Byrom’s con­vic­tion so that she can have a fair oppor­tu­ni­ty to have her case heard in court.”

(E. Le Coz, ​“Mississippi woman on death row for over 13 years gets new tri­al,” Reuters, March 31, 2014). The Mississippi Supreme Court also reject­ed the state’s request for an exe­cu­tion date for Charles Crawford, not­ing that there were unre­solved issues in his case. See Arbitrariness and Innocence.

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