State And Federal Info
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.
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.2d 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).
In 2011, a bill was introduced to impose a moratorium on executions. The bill did not pass the state legislature.
Mississippi was one of two states to use a portable electric chair, and the first state to do so.
Innocence
Jan 12, 2021
Eddie Lee Howard, Jr., convicted and sentenced to death based on the false forensic testimony of a since disgraced prosecution expert witness, has been exonerated after nearly 26 years on Mississippi’s death row. …
Innocence
Oct 20, 2020
In his first interview since his September 24, 2020 exoneration, former Mississippi death-row prison…
United States Supreme Court
Oct 12, 2020
NEWS (10/5/20) — Washington, D.C.: The 2020 – 2021 U.S. Supreme Court term opened on October 5 with the Court declining to review challenges to more than 30 death-penalty court decisions. The only death-pen…
Innocence
Sep 08, 2020
After six trials marred by prosecutorial misconduct and racial prejudice, drawing a scathing rebuke from the U.S. Supreme Court, former Mississippi death-row prisoner Curtis Flowers (pictured with the ankle monito…
Innocence
Sep 01, 2020
The Mississippi Supreme Court has granted a new trial to death-row prisoner Eddie Lee Howard, Jr. (pictured), finding that the combination of scientifically invalid bite-mark evidence used to convict him and new DNA evidence entit…
Innocence
Apr 15, 2020
Beginning April 15, 2020, two television series — one a new program from Netflix and the other new episodes of a returning series from CNN — will highlight stories of wrongful convictions, including some death-penalty cases. The new Netfl…
Race
Jan 08, 2020
After having been rebuked by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2019 for his pattern of racially biased jury selection in the capital prosecutions of
Innocence
Dec 16, 2019
A Mississippi trial judge has released Curtis Flowers on $250,000 bail, while prosecutors decide whether to attempt to try him a seventh time for a quadruple murder he has long maintained he did not commit. Flower…
Race
Nov 19, 2019
Two civil rights organizations have filed a class action lawsuit against Mississippi prosecutor Doug Evans (pictured) seeking an end to what they describe as a “policy, custom, and usage of racially discriminatory…
Race
Jun 21, 2019
Finding that a Mississippi prosecutor had intentionally struck black jurors in an attempt to empanel as white a jury as possible, the United States Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of death-row prisoner Curtis G…
