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.
Recent Legislative Activity
Jun 28, 2022
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. Mississippi authorizes execution by le…
Executions Overview
Nov 16, 2021
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 150…
Innocence
Sep 30, 2021
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 Jim…
Innocence
Sep 13, 2021
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…
Methods of Execution
Aug 11, 2021
Alabama and Mississippi have undertaken preparatory steps towards resuming executions in the face of continuing legal challenges to their methods of execution. On August 2, 2021, Alabama’s Department of C…
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…
