Mississippi Today
Her father was sentenced to life in prison. A Jackson woman seeks law change to bring him home.
Ferlando Esco hasn’t been home in nearly 20 years.
The former Canton resident is serving a life sentence in Mississippi’s prisons not because he was convicted of killing or seriously hurting anyone. The 50-year-old received that sentence under the state‘s habitual offender law.
That law states that two prior, separate felony convictions that resulted in a prison sentence of at least one year in state or federal prison can result in a life conviction without the possibility of parole. Only one of the felonies has to be a violent crime.
His daughter, Ferlandria Porter, 30, has been fighting for his release and is calling on the state Legislature to pass laws that give people like her father a chance at parole โ a chance to come home.
โI’m still fighting and praying that the laws change, that the habitual offender law changes,โ Esco said in a phone interview from a Colorado prison, where he was transferred last year and remains in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
Porter is collecting signatures for a petition asking for changes to the habitual offender law. In the petition, she writes the state’s habitual offender law significantly affects those like Esco who committed a felony in adolescence and leaves them without hope.
Esco, who is 50, said the laws don’t recognize how he and others have matured and changed while incarcerated. He tries to help younger men when they come to prison because he sees himself in them. Esco has also taken classes that are available to him and he prays.
A 2019 report by FWD.us found that more than 2,600 people are serving prison time under Mississippi’s habitual offender laws, and nearly half have been sentenced to life or a virtual life sentence of 50 years or more. Black men are disproportionately sentenced under these laws.
Among those sentenced as habitual offenders are people serving time for nonviolent offenses, like Tameka Drummer, who went to prison in 2008 for possessing less than two ounces of marijuana. She had two prior violent felonies that she already served time for.
Porter sees a life sentence without parole as essentially a death sentence. She understands that the Parole Board, especially in recent years, is tough about its decisions, but at least people would have a chance to be released.
โGive him a chance to come home to be a grandfather,โ she said.
Esco has seen how his daughter is advocating for his release and reform to the state’s habitual offender law. Visits with his grandchildren have renewed his hope of returning home, even over the years as lawmakers file reform bills and they don’t become law.
In November, Esco was transferred from Walnut Grove Correctional Facility to a prison in Colorado, according to prison records. Porter said the family was not given a reason for his move, and they hope to visit him there.
The first felony conviction on Esco’s record was a strong arm robbery from 1991 when he was 16, according to court records.
He said the habitual offender law penalized him for a mistake he made as a teenager, when his mindset made him more likely to take risks and not think about consequences.
โYou don’t know that it will come back to haunt you โฆ and that’s what happened to me,โ Esco said.
The next conviction that paved the way for his sentence as a habitual offender was in 2005, when he was 30. Esco received six sentences stemming from his role in an attempted robbery in the parking lot of a McDonalds in Madison, where one man was shot. His two co-defendants pointed to Esco as the mastermind of the plot to lure the man there, according to court records.
Esco remembered being in a state of disbelief when he was sentenced to life. He said all he could think about were his young children and what would happen to them.
Porter, family members and supporters believe Esco is innocent and was wrongfully convicted in the Madison case. He maintains he was not at the McDonalds at the time of the failed robbery.
Porter has another petition laying out the details of her father’s case and calling for his release.
In his appeal and a petition for post-conviction relief, Esco argued that his co-defendants were coerced into implicating him in exchange for lesser prison sentences. He also argued that an eyewitness, a McDonald’s worker, did not identify Esco from a lineup and that evidence wasn’t presented in court, according to case records.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals rejected the arguments.
In recent years, there have been bills proposed in Mississippi to alter how people are sentenced as habitual offenders, but many of those efforts died in committee.
So far this session, Rep. Bryant Clark, D-Pickens, filed a House Bill 225 that would revise the habitual offender penalty so someone would have to have been previously convicted of two violent crimes, and they would be eligible for parole or early release consistent with the eligibility for the offenses they were sentenced to. Life sentences would be calculated at 50 years.
House Minority Leader Rep. Robert Johson III of Natchez refiled bills to make habitual offenders parole eligible (HB 572) if they serve 10 years for a sentence that is 40 years or longer and to exclude drug and nonviolent offenses when computing prior offenses (HB 570).
Rep. Jeffrey Harness, D-Fayette, refiled HB 285 to exclude nonviolent offenses from habitual offender penalties.
Last session, Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons of Greenville filed a series of bills, which would have changed how former convictions count toward sentencing someone as a habitual offender, including whether they were at least 18 when the crime was committed and the two prior felonies were violent crimes.
Without a law change, there aren’t many avenues for Esco to be released from prison.
He has tried to fight his case in court but that hasn’t been successful. The most recent attempt was a federal habeas petition, but it was dismissed in 2017 after going up to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Porter said the family will look into whether her father can apply for a pardon from Gov. Tate Reeves. To date, the governor has not pardoned anyone.
โWe suffer,โ Porter said about how her family is affected by her father’s incarceration. โI feel like we’re being chained up, too.โ
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
Mississippi Todayโs NewsMatch Campaign is Here: Support Journalism that Strengthens Mississippi
High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader support; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.
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.
Here at Mississippi Today we act as watchdogs, holding those in power accountable, and as storytellers, giving a platform to voices that have been ignored for too long. And we’re committed to keeping our stories free for everyone because information should be accessible when it’s needed most.
Why NewsMatch and Why Now?
This year’s NewsMatch campaign runs from November 1 through December 31, giving us a special opportunity to make each dollar you give go even further. Through matching funds provided by local foundations like the Maddox Foundation, and national funders like the MacArthur Foundation, the Rural Partner Fund and the Hewlett Foundation, your gift will be matched dollar for dollar up to $1,000. Plus, if 100 new donors join us, we’ll unlock an additional $2,000 in funding, bringing us even closer to our goal. Boiled down: your donation goes four times as far.
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.
Special Event: โFreedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impactโ
As part of the campaign, we’re excited to host a special virtual event, โFreedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact.โ Join Deep South Today newsrooms Mississippi Today and Verite News, along with national experts on press freedom, for an in-depth discussion on the unique challenges facing journalists in the Deep South. This one-hour session will explore the critical role local newsrooms play in holding power accountable, highlighting recent restrictions on press freedom such as Louisiana’s โ25-foot law,โ which affects journalists’ ability to report vital news.
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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Together, let’s ensure Mississippi has the robust, independent journalism it needs to thrive. Your support fuels our ability to expose the truth, elevate marginalized stories and build a more informed Mississippi.
Thank you for believing in the power of journalism to strengthen the communities we loveโnot only during election season but year-round. With your help, we’ll keep Mississippi informed, engaged and connected for generations to come.
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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