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Willie Jerome Manning is ‘sentenced to die for a crime he did not commit,’ his attorneys say, as they fight state efforts to set an execution date

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As the state seeks to set his execution date, Willie Jerome Manning continues to maintain his innocence, challenging a double-murder conviction that his attorneys say was based on unreliable evidence, including the recanted word of a jailhouse informant and forensics the Justice Department deemed faulty.

Manning was convicted of the shooting deaths of Mississippi State University students Tiffany Miller and Jon Steckler in 1994. He has pursued appeals and post-conviction relief that have questioned the state’s evidence and testimony that served as the foundation of his conviction.

“Willie Manning is sentenced to die for a crime he did not commit,” states the opening line of his Sept. 29 petition for post-conviction relief.

Last month, Attorney General Lynn Fitch asked for a stay of Manning’s execution, granted in 2013, to be lifted and for his execution to be scheduled. She also is seeking an execution date for Robert Simon Jr., who has been on death row for over 30 years.

In response, Manning’s attorneys from the Office of Post Conviction Counsel are seeking to dismiss the motion and allow him to continue to challenge his conviction.

His attorneys said in an Oct. 10 statement that the state hasn’t responded to the petition or considered the evidence. The state said deadlines in other death penalty cases through the end of the year have prevented it from responding to Manning’s petition, according to court records.

The court approved a Dec. 29 extension.

As of Monday, the Mississippi Supreme Court has not yet set an execution date for Manning.

The bodies of Miller and Steckler were discovered early Dec. 11, 1992. Steckler was shot in the back of the head and run over with Miller’s car. Miller was shot in the face at close range, and she was found with one leg out of her pants and underwear and her shirt pulled up, according to court documents.

From the beginning, law enforcement struggled to come up with leads, including a theory that the murders were connected to a car break-in that happened outside of a university fraternity that Steckler was a member of. The sheriff believed the couple encountered Manning during a break-in and he forced them to drive to another location, where he killed them.

It wasn’t until months after the shootings that Manning became a prime suspect. The state argued that he was caught selling items linked to Jon and taken from the burglarized car. Because there wasn’t physical evidence to link him to the murders or the car burglary, Manning’s attorneys argued that this urged the state to turn to jailhouse informants.

Manning, who has spent more than half of his 55 years on death row, allegedly confessed to the killings to his cousin, Earl Jordan. Jordan lied about the confession and another man, Frank Parker, who was also in jail, lied about overhearing Manning talking to another man about how he disposed of the murder weapon, according to new affidavits cited in the post-conviction petition.

His attorneys argue that the testimony of Paula Hathorn, Manning’s former girlfriend, was not entirely reliable because law enforcement pressured her for her cooperation, which included receiving a cash reward of $17,500 for being a state witness at trial, according to court documents.

She also provided the state with the link to a gun believed to have killed Steckler and Miller. An FBI firearms examiner matched bullets found on the victims’ bodies to ones removed from trees in Manning’s yard, which she said he shot at for target practice, according to court records.

A 2013 letter from the Department of Justice said there were errors from FBI testimony about firearms and hair analysis. This led to the delay of Manning’s scheduled execution to allow the testing of evidence, including a rape kit and fingernail scrapings.

The firearms testimony was an error because the science behind firearms examinations “does not permit examiner testimony that a specific gun fired a specific bullet to the exclusion of all other guns in the world”, according to court documents.

A firearms expert who worked with Manning’s attorneys and commented on findings of the DOJ’s 2013 letter provided affidavits that year. In another affidavit provided this year, the expert said new research and studies have shown that firearm identification and toolmark analysis are an unreliable form of forensic science, according to court records. 

Manning should be granted a new trial based on the state’s use of scientifically invalid testimony, his attorneys argued.

“There are already compelling reasons to question the reliability of the convictions,” the post-conviction relief petition states. “When the totality of available evidence is reviewed, there is no longer any reliable basis for Manning’s convictions to stand.”

Attorneys laid out grounds for the court to grant relief, including how the state allegedly violated Manning’s due process rights when it “intentionally or merely failed to disclose” evidence favorable to his defense, including the sheriff’s arrangement for Jordan to cooperate in exchange for reduced charges and how the overheard conversation about Manning disposing of the weapon never happened, according to court records.

Manning has already been exonerated in another double murder case. His attorneys noted similarities in how law enforcement pursued a case against him.

In 1993, Manning was accused of killing 90-year old Alberta Jordan and her 60-year-old daughter Emmoline Jimmerson in their Starkville apartment, and convicted for their murders in 1996.

The Mississippi Supreme Court ordered a new trial in the case after determining the state violated Manning’s due-process rights “by failing to provide favorable, material evidence,” according to court records. Since the state’s main witness recanted his statements in sworn affidavits, then-Oktibbeha County District Attorney Forrest Allgood dismissed the charges, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.

A study by the registry found that false testimony or accusations were the single largest factor in wrongful homicide convictions between 1989 and 2012.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

An ad supporting Jenifer Branning finds imaginary liberals on the Mississippi Supreme Court

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mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2024-11-24 06:00:00

The Improve Mississippi PAC claims in advertising that the state Supreme Court “is in danger of being dominated by liberal justices” unless Jenifer Branning is elected in Tuesday’s runoff.

Improve Mississippi made the almost laughable claim in both radio commercials and mailers that were sent to homes in the court’s central district, where a runoff election will be held on Tuesday.

Improve Mississippi is an independent, third party political action committee created to aid state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County in her efforts to defeat longtime Central District Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens of Copiah County.

The PAC should receive an award or at least be considered for an honor for best fiction writing.

At least seven current members of the nine-member Supreme Court would be shocked to know anyone considered them liberal.

It is telling that the ads do not offer any examples of “liberal” Supreme Court opinions issued by the current majority. It is even more telling that there have been no ads by Improve Mississippi or any other group citing the liberal dissenting opinions written or joined by Kitchens.

Granted, it is fair and likely accurate to point out that Branning is more conservative than Kitchens. After all, Branning is considered one of the more conservative members of a supermajority Republican Mississippi Senate.

As a member of the Senate, for example, she voted against removing the Confederate battle emblem from the Mississippi state flag, opposed Medicaid expansion and an equal pay bill for women.

And if she is elected to the state Supreme Court in Tuesday’s runoff election, she might be one of the panel’s more conservative members. But she will be surrounded by a Supreme Court bench full of conservatives.

A look at the history of the members of the Supreme Court might be helpful.

Chief Justice Michael Randolph originally was appointed to the court by Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who is credited with leading the effort to make the Republican Party dominant in Mississippi. Before Randolph was appointed by Barbour, he served a stint on the National Coal Council — appointed to the post by President Ronald Reagan who is considered an icon in the conservative movement.

Justices James Maxwell, Dawn Beam, David Ishee and Kenneth Griffis were appointed by Republican Gov. Phil Bryant.

Only three members of the current court were not initially appointed to the Supreme Court by conservative Republican governors: Kitchens, Josiah Coleman and Robert Chamberlin. All three got their initial posts on the court by winning elections for full eight-year terms.

But Chamberlin, once a Republican state senator from Southaven, was appointed as a circuit court judge by Barbour before winning his Supreme Court post. And Coleman was endorsed in his election effort by both the Republican Party and by current Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who also contributed to his campaign.

Only Kitchens earned a spot on the court without either being appointed by a Republican governor or being endorsed by the state Republican Party.

The ninth member of the court is Leslie King, who, like Kitchens, is viewed as not as conservative as the other seven justices. King, former chief judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals, was originally appointed to the Supreme Court by Barbour, who to his credit made the appointment at least in part to ensure that a Black Mississippian remained on the nine-member court.

It should be noted that Beam was defeated on Nov. 5 by David Sullivan, a Gulf Coast municipal judge who has a local reputation for leaning conservative. Even if Sullivan is less conservative when he takes his new post in January, there still be six justices on the Supreme Court with strong conservative bonafides, not counting what happens in the Branning-Kitchens runoff.

Granted, Kitchens is next in line to serve as chief justice should Randolph, who has been on the court since 2004, step down. The longest tenured justice serves as the chief justice.

But to think that Kitchens as chief justice would be able to exert enough influence to force the other longtime conservative members of the court to start voting as liberals is even more fiction.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1968

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-24 07:00:00

Nov. 24, 1968

Credit: Wikipedia

Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver fled the U.S. to avoid imprisonment on a parole violation. He wrote in “Soul on Ice”: “If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America.” 

The Arkansas native began to be incarcerated when he was still in junior high and soon read about Malcolm X. He began writing his own essays, drawing the praise of Norman Mailer and others. That work helped him win parole in 1966. His “Soul on Ice” memoir, written from Folsom state prison, described his journey from selling marijuana to following Malcolm X. The book he wrote became a seminal work in Black literature, and he became a national figure. 

Cleaver soon joined the Black Panther Party, serving as the minister of information. After a Panther shootout with police that left him injured, one Panther dead and two officers wounded, he jumped bail and fled the U.S. In 1977, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, he returned to the U.S. pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of assault and served 1,200 hours of community service. 

From that point forward, “Mr. Cleaver metamorphosed into variously a born-again Christian, a follower of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a Mormon, a crack cocaine addict, a designer of men’s trousers featuring a codpiece and even, finally, a Republican,” The New York Times wrote in his 1998 obituary. His wife said he was suffering from mental illness and never recovered.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1867

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-23 07:00:00

Nov. 23, 1867

Extract from the Reconstructed Constitution of the State of Louisiana, 1868. Credit: Library of Congress

The Louisiana Constitutional Convention, composed of 49 White delegates and 49 Black delegates, met in New Orleans. The new constitution became the first in the state’s history to include a bill of rights. 

The document gave property rights to married women, funded public education without segregated schools, provided full citizenship for Black Americans, and eliminated the Black Codes of 1865 and property qualifications for officeholders. 

The voters ratified the constitution months later. Despite the document, prejudice and corruption continued to reign in Louisiana, and when Reconstruction ended, the constitution was replaced with one that helped restore the rule of white supremacy.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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