Mississippi

History of the Death Penalty

From 1804 – 1940, all exe­cu­tions in Mississippi were car­ried out by hang­ing. The first exe­cu­tion by elec­tro­cu­tion took place on October 11, 1940. From then until 1952, the elec­tric chair was moved from coun­ty to coun­ty for 75 exe­cu­tions. Inmates were exe­cut­ed by lethal gas from 1954 – 1989. In 1984, the Mississippi leg­is­la­ture amend­ed the state’s death penal­ty statute to pro­vide for lethal injec­tion for all indi­vid­u­als sen­tenced to death after the law went into effect. Inmates sen­tenced pri­or to the change were still exe­cut­ed by lethal gas. In 1998, lethal gas was removed as an option.

Timeline

1818 — Mississippi car­ries out its first documented execution.

1940 — The portable elec­tric chair replaces hang­ing as the pri­ma­ry method of exe­cu­tion in Mississippi. Hilton Fortenberry is the first per­son in Mississippi to be exe­cut­ed by electric chair.

1955 — In a botched exe­cu­tion last­ing 45 min­utes, Gerald Gallego is the first per­son to be exe­cut­ed by lethal gas. Louisiana then adds an addi­tion­al step to the required test­ing of the gas cham­ber to include plac­ing an ani­mal in the cham­ber to test if the mix­ture of gas is sufficiently lethal.

1984 — The Mississippi leg­is­la­ture amends the state’s death penal­ty statute to allow lethal injec­tion for all indi­vid­u­als sen­tenced to death once the law goes into effect. Inmates sen­tenced pri­or to this statute still faced exe­cu­tion by lethal gas.

1998 — Lethal gas is removed as an option for method of execution.

2002 — Tracy Hansen is the first per­son to exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion in Mississippi.

2011 — A bill is intro­duced to impose a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions but the state leg­is­la­ture does not pass the bill.

2015 — A fed­er­al judge blocks Mississippi from using the seda­tives pen­to­bar­bi­tal and mida­zo­lam in its lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion pro­to­col. Midazolam has been impli­cat­ed in exe­cu­tions gon awry in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Arizona.

2017 — Mississippi appeals court grants Sherwood Brown a new tri­al after review­ing excul­pa­to­ry results of DNA test­ing and evi­dence. Mr. Brown’s death sen­tence con­vic­tion was obtained as a result of mis­lead­ing forensic testimony.

2020 — Curtis Flowers is exon­er­at­ed after spend­ing 23 years on death row. Mr. Flowers was tried cap­i­tal mur­der six times by the same pros­e­cu­tor, Doug Evans, and has faced numer­ous issues with pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and racial bias in jury selec­tion in his trials.

2021 — Mississippi car­ries out the exe­cu­tion of David Cox by lethal injec­tion. This is the first exe­cu­tion car­ried out in near­ly a decade.

2022 — Mississippi leg­is­la­ture pass­es a law allow­ing cor­rec­tions offi­cials to chose their pre­ferred exe­cu­tion method by either lethal injec­tion, elec­tro­cu­tion, fir­ing squad, or nitrogen hypoxia.

Notable Exonerations

Sabrina Butler was 17 years old when her 9‑month old son, who had a heart mur­mur, stopped breath­ing. After attempts to resus­ci­tate her son, Butler rushed to the hos­pi­tal, where the young child was pro­nounced dead. The fol­low­ing day Butler was arrest­ed for child abuse due to the bruis­es left by her resus­ci­ta­tion attempts. She was inter­ro­gat­ed by the police and then pros­e­cut­ed. Then, in 1990, she was con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der and sen­tenced to death.

Her con­vic­tion was over­turned by the Mississippi Supreme Court in 1992. (Butler v. State, 608 So.2^d 314 (Miss. 1992)). The court said that the pros­e­cu­tion had failed to prove that the inci­dent was any­thing more than an acci­dent. At re-tri­al, she was acquit­ted on Dec. 17, 1995 after a very brief jury delib­er­a­tion. It is now believed that the baby may have died either of cys­tic kid­ney dis­ease or from sud­den infant death syn­drome (SIDS).

Milestones in Abolition/​Reinstatement

In 2011, a bill was intro­duced to impose a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. The bill did not pass the state legislature.

Other Interesting Facts

Mississippi was one of two states to use a portable elec­tric chair, and the first state to do so.

Resources

• Department of Corrections
• Prosecutors
• Mississippi Public Defenders Association
• Victims’ ser­vices

Mississippi Execution Totals Since 1976