Mississippi Today
Ex-Corinth city employee, fiance charged with 27 counts of animal cruelty
A north Mississippi animal shelter caring for 27 dogs whose owners have been charged with animal neglect is hoping that the case is an opportunity to reexamine the state’s animal protection laws, which have been rated as among the weakest in the nation.
The owner and his fiance are facing misdemeanors.
โStuff like this case is not as uncommon as people think it is,โ said Meridith Perry, interim director of the Corinth Alcorn Animal Shelter. โIt is happening more than people realize.โ
One puppy was dead and scavenged by the other dogs.
A tip from a neighbor led the Corinth police to a Pleasant Grove Road home where several dogs were outside. Inside, police and staff from the shelter and rescue organizations found malnourished and sick dogs without food and water.ย
Mixed breed dogs ranging in age from a few months old to adult age hid under furniture and others stood on it, video released by the local animal shelter shows. Feces and urine covered the ground.
Perry said the shelter is over capacity since taking in the rescued dogs.
The owner of the home, Jonathan Hurst, a Corinth city employee terminated this week, was arrested July 28 and, days later, so was his fiance, Sondra Bullard. Both were charged with 27 counts of animal cruelty โ a misdemeanor charge for each dog discovered at the property.
After initial hearings last week, both pleaded not guilty and were released on personal recognizance, according to the Corinth Municipal Court’s office. Their next scheduled court date is Nov. 4.
They could not be reached for comment Friday.
Hurst, who worked for the city’s sewer department, lost his job Tuesday. Mayor Ralph Dance said the termination was unrelated to the animal neglect case, but rather issues related to his employment, the Daily Corinthian reported.
The city is also considering demolition of the home where the dogs were found because it has been contaminated and is not salvageable.
The Animal Legal Defense Funds ranked Mississippi’s animal protection laws as No. 45 in the nation in its recent report, based on statutes and categories of protection.
In Mississippi, a charge of simple animal cruelty includes the criminal neglect or intent of depriving a dog or cat of adequate shelter, food or water or confining them in a cruel manner. A charge carries a penalty of up to six months in jail or a maximum $1,000 fine, or both.
For Hurst and Bullard, that could mean up to 13 ยฝ years of jail time, $27,000 in fines or both if convicted of all 27 charges.
Aggravated cruelty, a felony, is intentional harm of a dog or cat. Each charge can come with a maximum three-year prison sentence, a $5,000 fine or both. Subsequent offenses within five years carry a prison sentence of one to 10 years and a maximum $10,000 fine.
โWe’re not really holding people accountable to the level they should be,โ said Perry, who noted that in other states, there is more of an ability to charge animal cruelty as a felony rather than a misdemeanor.
Under state law updated in 2020, a judge can prohibit someone from owning animals in the future, order the person to seek counseling or to complete community service.
Those found to violate that prohibition can be fined and their animals forfeited to the state, according to state law.
Convictions have varied for people charged with animal cruelty under the law.
In 2020, a Jones County woman was charged with 38 counts after caged and hungry dogs were rescued and five dogs were found dead at a property she owned. She was sentenced to 114 months in jail with six to serve, thousands in fines, hundreds of community service hours and an order to undergo a psychological evaluation.
Last year, a woman who ran a Harrison County animal rescue organization pleaded no contest to 10 counts of animal cruelty and was ordered to serve six months in jail. Sheriff’s deputies went to her property in 2022 and found 30 dead dogs, a dead buzzard and live dogs that were taken in by the nearby animal shelter.
A man pleaded guilty in March to aggravated animal cruelty for throwing a dog off a balcony in Hattiesburg, breaking its bones. In an order of nonadjudication of guilt, he was ordered to complete community service and remain in good behavior.
The FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System began collecting information about animal cruelty incidents from law enforcement agencies in 2016. But the agency cautions that the numbers may be underreported because not every law enforcement agency reports data and animal control agencies and humane organizations that often investigate cruelty aren’t able to report data.
Preliminary analysis of the data from 2018 found 4.3 animal cruelty incidents nationally per 100,000 people โ far less than incidents of crimes such as assault, robbery and drug offenses.
In Mississippi, data from the reporting system from 2020 through 2022 showed a total of 362 reported animal cruelty incidents. As the FBI noted, the data is likely underreported because for these years, incidents were reported from 30 to 80 agencies โ a fraction of the hundreds of law enforcement agencies that exist in the state.
As of Friday, the rescued dogs from the Corinth home are recovering. Eight of them were taken into the care of Guardians of Rescue and placed in foster homes out of state. The remaining are in the care of the Corinth Alcorn Animal Shelter.
Some of the younger ones in better health will be ready for adoption or transport out of state in the coming weeks, Perry said.
Through the end of the month, adoptions are $50 for dogs that have been at the shelter for a year or more, which she said will help clear up space.
The shelter staff expressed gratitude to the community and supporters from beyond Corinth who have donated dog food, cleaning supplies and money to help with medical bills.
โThe support has been overwhelming,โ Perry said. โWe didn’t expect anything of it. We had no idea of what to expect. We just put out the call.โ
For more information about how to help the shelter and updates about the rescued dogs, visit www.facebook.com/corinthanimalshelter
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1875
Nov. 2, 1875
The first Mississippi Plan, which included violence against Black Americans to keep them from voting, resulted in huge victories for white Democrats across the state.
A year earlier, the Republican Party had carried a majority of the votes, and many Black Mississippians had been elected to office. In the wake of those victories, white leagues arose to challenge Republican rule and began to use widespread violence and fraud to recapture control of the state.
Over several days in September 1875, about 50 Black Mississippians were killed along with white supporters, including a school teacher who worked with the Black community in Clinton.
The governor asked President Ulysses Grant to intervene, but he decided against intervening, and the violence and fraud continued. Other Southern states soon copied the Mississippi plan.
John R. Lynch, the last Black congressman for Mississippi until the 1986 election of Mike Espy, wrote: โIt was a well-known fact that in 1875 nearly every Democratic club in the State was converted into an armed military company.โ
A federal grand jury concluded: โFraud, intimidation, and violence perpetrated at the last election is without a parallel in the annals of history.โ
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
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In a time when trusted journalists and media sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy reporting, civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
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Every dollar raised strengthens our ability to serve you with fact-based journalism on issues that impact your everyday lifeโwhether it’s covering local election issues or reporting on decisions affecting schools, safety and economic growth in Mississippi. Your support makes it possible for us to stay rooted in the community, offering nuanced perspectives that help Mississippians understand and engage with what’s happening around them.
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We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!
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This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Hinds County loses fight over control of jail
The Hinds County sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.
Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, including a failure to protect detainees from harm.
However, the appeals court called the new injunction โoverly broadโ in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.
The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be removed.
The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as โfederal intrusion into RDC’s budgetโ โ especially if the receivership has no end date.
Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion.ย
In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which holds people facing trial.
โBut the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,โ the appeals court wrote.
This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022.
The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the solutions they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in Jackson.
The county had a chance to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the death of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old infrastructure and use of force.
Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.
But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff.
The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference.
Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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