Charges Dropped Against Willie Manning; Becomes 153^rd Death Row Exoneree

On April 21, 2015, Oktibbeha County (Mississippi) District Attorney Forrest Allgood announced that he would drop charges against death row inmate Willie Manning.

In February, the Mississippi Supreme court grant­ed Manning a new tri­al, say­ing that key evi­dence was with­held. Justice Michael K. Randolph wrote, ​“The State vio­lat­ed Manning’s due-process rights by fail­ing to pro­vide favor­able, mate­r­i­al evi­dence.” A wit­ness tes­ti­fied that he saw Manning enter the vic­tims’ apart­ment, but police records that were with­held from the defense show the apart­ment from which he claimed to have seen Manning was vacant at the time, and records from the apart­ment com­plex did not list the wit­ness as a ten­ant. The wit­ness lat­er recant­ed his tes­ti­mo­ny, say­ing he feared he would be charged with the crime if he didn’t testify. 

Manning remains on death row for a sep­a­rate crime, but the evi­dence against Manning in that case is hair and bal­lis­tics analy­sis from the FBI that was recent­ly iden­ti­fied as seri­ous­ly flawed. Manning came with­in hours of being exe­cut­ed in that case, receiv­ing a stay of exe­cu­tion only after the FBI sent sep­a­rate let­ters dis­clos­ing flaws in its bal­lis­tics and hair comparison testimony.

The FBI has offered to con­duct DNA test­ing of the evi­dence from that case on Manning’s behalf. Because that death sen­tence stems from an unre­lat­ed crime, Manning meets the cri­te­ria for inclu­sion on DPIC’s Exoneration List. He is the 153^rd per­son exon­er­at­ed from death row since 1973, the fourth in Mississippi, and the third in 2015.