State & Federal
Mississippi
News & Developments
News
Nov 10, 2023
A Veterans Day Review: Uneven Progress Understanding the Role of Military Service in Capital Crimes
In 2015, DPIC’s Battle Scars report brought worldwide attention to the issue of military veterans on death row. DPIC found approximately 300 veterans incarcerated under a sentence of death, representing at least 10% of death row, and many more who had been executed. Since that report, research and understanding about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), substance use disorders, and mental illness among veterans has only grown. A 2023 survey of members of the Wounded Warrior Project found that 76% of servicemembers who incurred a mental or physical…
Read MoreJul 12, 2023
Doug Evans, the District Attorney Who Prosecuted Curtis Flowers Six Times, Retires
Doug Evans, the District Attorney who tried death row exoneree Curtis Flowers for murder six times, is retiring. Mr. Flowers received four death sentences, but each conviction was overturned when courts found that Evans had illegally excluded Black jurors from the jury pool.
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Dec 19, 2022
Mississippi Executes Thomas Loden, As John Hanson, Gerald Pizzuto Death Warrants Expire
The three final executions scheduled in 2022 highlighted broader trends in the year’s executions — the execution of vulnerable defendants, unavailability of lethal-injection drugs, and the scheduling of executions without regard for the ability to actually carry them out. Mississippi executed Thomas “Eddie” Loden Jr. (pictured) on December 14, the 18th execution of the year, while two executions set for December 15 — John Hanson’s in Oklahoma and Gerald Pizzuto Jr.’s in Idaho — did not take place.
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Dec 13, 2022
Curtis Flowers Prosecutor Defeated in Bid to Become County Judge
District Attorney Doug Evans, who gained notoriety for his misconduct in the six trial of Curtis Flowers, was defeated November 29, 2022 in his attempt to become a Mississippi Circuit Court judge. In a runoff election, Winona Municipal Court Judge Alan “Devo” Lancaster (pictured) defeated Evans for Mississippi Fifth District Circuit Court judge. Based on unofficial election results, Lancaster received 70% of the vote while Evans received 30% of the vote.
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Jul 15, 2022
Mississippi Supreme Court Denies Additional DNA Testing to Death-Row Prisoner
The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied additional DNA testing to death-row prisoner Willie Manning (pictured). Manning, who was sentenced to death in Oktibbeha County in 1994 and in 1996 for two separate crimes, has maintained his innocence of both crimes. He was exonerated of the 1996 conviction in 2015 after police and prosecutors unlawfully withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.
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Jun 28, 2022
Mississippi Gives Department of Corrections Unprecedented Discretion Over Execution Methods
Mississippi corrections officials will have unprecedented discretion in selecting how the state’s death-row prisoners will be executed under a new law that takes effect July 1, 2022.
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Nov 16, 2021
Execution ‘Volunteer’ First to be Put to Death in Mississippi in Nine Years
Mississippi carried out its first execution in more than nine years on November 17, 2021, putting to death a man with mental health disorders who had waived his appeals. David Neal Cox became at least the 150th person since executions resumed in the United States in 1977 to drop their appeals and “volunteer” for execution. Executions of volunteers account for 10% of all U.S. executions in that period.
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Sep 30, 2021
Sherwood Brown Exonerated in Mississippi, 186th Death-Row Exoneration Since 1973
Sherwood Brown has been exonerated of the charges that sent him to death row in Mississippi in 1995 for a triple murder he did not commit. On August 24, 2021, DeSoto County Circuit Court Judge Jimmy McClure granted a prosecution motion to dismiss charges against Brown (pictured after his release), who was released later that day after having spent 26 years on the state’s death row or facing the prospects of a capital retrial.
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Sep 13, 2021
Death-Row Exoneree Curtis Flowers Sues Mississippi Prosecutor Who Prosecuted Him Six Times
Former Mississippi death-row prisoner Curtis Flowers (pictured), who was exonerated in 2020, is suing the officials whose misconduct led to his arrest and repeated wrongful conviction. Flowers was tried six times and spent 23 years wrongfully incarcerated for a quadruple murder in a white-owned furniture store in Winona, Mississippi. In a complaint filed September 3, 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi, Flowers alleges that his trial prosecutor, an investigator in the prosecutor’s office, and two police officers involved in the investigation engaged in pervasive misconduct…
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Aug 11, 2021
Alabama, Mississippi Take Preparatory Steps to Resume Executions
Alabama and Mississippi have undertaken preparatory steps towards resuming executions in the face of continuing legal challenges to their methods of execution.
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Jan 12, 2021
Convicted by False Forensic Evidence, Eddie Lee Howard, Jr. Exonerated From Mississippi Death Row After 26 Years
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. He is the 174th former death-row prisoner exonerated in the U.S. since 1973 and the sixth in Mississippi.
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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.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).
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.
Mississippi River. Photo by NSBP.
