Mississippi voters have dealt defeat to one conservative state Supreme Court justice and forced a moderate justice into a Nov. 26 runoff, with the final outcome possibly making the court more open to considering the rights of criminal defendants.

The nine-member court is largely conservative but justices have recently split in high-profile decisions that sharply affected state politics, including a ruling that shut down citizen-led ballot initiatives in Mississippi and allowed some state control over local criminal cases in its majority-Black capital. The court has also rendered rulings that have made the state increasingly unfavorable to defendants appealing their cases. 

“The ability of death row inmates in particular, and inmates in general, to access the courts has been recently curtailed significantly,” Matthew Steffey, a professor at Mississippi College School of Law, told The Marshall Project – Jackson and Bolts following the Nov. 5 election.  

Justice Dawn H. Beam joined the majority in those decisions, acquiring a reputation of being hostile to appeals by criminal defendants, and she ran for reelection this fall as the Republican Party’s favored candidate. However, she lost in the state’s 2nd District on Nov. 5 to David P. Sullivan, a defense attorney who has worked as a public defender.

Judicial races in Mississippi are nonpartisan and Sullivan has given few explicit signals about his judicial outlook. He has supported at least some criminal justice reforms and would be the third justice with experience as a defense attorney on this court. Some reformers nationwide have pushed for more professional diversity on the bench.

Even if Sullivan turns out to be more centrist or independent than Beam on criminal law, any overall shift in power on the court depends on the outcome of a runoff election next week. 

Two-term Justice Jim Kitchens and challenger Jenifer B. Branning will face each other in the Nov. 26 runoff election after neither won more than 50% of the vote on Nov. 5. The runoff will take place across the 22 counties that make up the Supreme Court’s central district, including Hinds County, home to Jackson. Throughout the campaign, the state GOP targeted Kitchens with attacks, while Branning, a Republican state senator with a conservative voting record, is endorsed by the party.

Kitchens is one of two reliably moderate-to-liberal high court justices. Justices from among an additional group of four sometimes veer away from the majority, as well, but can be more unpredictable, and this group does not vote as a bloc. 

Quinn Yeargain, a Michigan State University law professor who closely watches state courts, recently analyzed the court’s voting patterns and found Beam was consistently more conservative than Kitchens in recent cases. Yeargain told The Marshall Project – Jackson and Bolts that conservative and liberal voters often have few signals about how to select a candidate in judicial races. “It’s very hard to label the justices,” they said.

Sullivan — whose father was a Mississippi Supreme Court justice from 1984 to 2000 — called himself a “conservative” throughout his campaign. But he has also touted the value of judicial independence and criticized Beam for campaigning on her endorsement by the state Republican Party. 

“I think that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way,” Sullivan told the Sun Herald newspaper, speaking of Beam’s use of the endorsement. “Judicial races are nonpartisan for a reason. A judge’s impartiality could be called into question.”

Sullivan has broad legal experience, but much of his career has focused on private criminal defense while also doing some public defense work. He told The Marshall Project – Jackson and Mississippi Today that he supported a new administrative rule handed down in 2023 by the state Supreme Court to require continuous legal representation for poor criminal defendants from the beginning of their cases. An investigation by The Marshall Project, ProPublica and the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal last year found, however, that many courts were unready at the time to implement the new representation rules.

During the campaign, Sullivan told The Marshall Project – Jackson and Mississippi Today that more work is needed to improve public defense.

Kitchens has also advocated for public defense reforms during his two terms on the court. He told a committee of legislators last year that the “playing field is far from level” between prosecutors and poor defendants.

On other criminal justice issues, he has sometimes dissented from opinions upholding death sentences. His decisions have scrutinized prosecutorial conduct and inadequate legal representation. 

Branning, the Republican senator, has a voting record on criminal justice issues that suggests a harsher approach toward criminal defendants. She has supported higher mandatory minimum sentences and reclassifying misdemeanors as felonies, has opposed expansion of parole and was among only a few lawmakers who voted against legalizing medical marijuana. 

She also supported increasing the jurisdiction of a controversial, state-run police force inside the majority-Black city of Jackson as well as increasing state control over many felony cases in Jackson. The Supreme Court unanimously curtailed much state power over these felony cases, but a majority left some control intact, with Kitchens and another judge dissenting.

Branning did not respond to questions from The Marshall Project – Jackson and Mississippi Today during the Nov. 5 campaign about her possible judicial outlook.

Kitchens was a prosecutor and then in private practice before joining the bench. Branning is a practicing attorney who typically handles civil cases. 

The winner of the Nov. 26 runoff will join Sullivan on a court that in recent years has been restricting the ability of people who say the legal system has wronged them to seek relief, legal experts told The Marshall Project – Jackson and Bolts this month. 

Krissy Nobile, director of the state’s Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, said it’s become “increasingly more difficult to correct a wrongful conviction.” Her office provides legal counsel for indigent people on death row. 

She said a number of recent cases showed the barriers the high court has erected for criminal defendants appealing their convictions, and demonstrated indifference to civil rights violations. Kitchens disagreed with the majority, in full or in part, in all but one of the appeals, which the court unanimously denied.

In a case earlier this year, the Court ruled to monetarily fine an incarcerated person for filing any future post-conviction relief petitions that lacked merit. Kitchens joined a dissenting opinion condemning the fine. In another, the court denied a man who argued that his lawyers were ineffective and that they did not challenge prosecutorial misconduct or false forensic evidence presented by a medical examiner with a checkered past. The court’s majority denied the motion, and in the process, overturned a precedent that allowed ineffective counsel as an adequate reason to give a case another look in some types of appeals. Kitchens dissented, along with two other justices. 

“For decades in Mississippi, the Court held that it would correct errors if there was a violation (of) a person’s fundamental rights,” Nobile said. But she added this has changed considerably. Now, if you land a terrible lawyer who rushes your case, “You are out of luck,” she said, “even if your core constitutional rights have been clearly violated.” 

For the court’s majority, Nobile added, “The legal technicalities now trump a person’s constitutional rights.” 

The runoff is the nation’s final supreme court race of the year. Thirty-two states held elections for their high courts earlier this year, resulting in a muddled picture, with liberals and conservatives each gaining ground in different places, Bolts reports. 

Mississippi’s runoff outcome will heavily depend on turnout and the composition of the electorate. In the Supreme Court’s central district, voters split narrowly between Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump in the presidential election on Nov. 5, but the runoff is just two days before Thanksgiving and will likely see a large dropoff in turnout. Branning received 42% of the vote in the first round, and Kitchens received 36%, with three other candidates making up the rest. 

There will also be a runoff the same day in the Gulf Coast area between Amy Lassiter St. Pé and Jennifer Schloegel for an open seat on the state Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals hears both criminal and civil cases that have been appealed from lower courts. The Mississippi Supreme Court can hear cases directly on appeal or can assign cases to the Court of Appeals.

Observers agreed that against the national legal backdrop, neither a Kitchens victory nor a Branning victory would lead to a seismic change since neither outcome would flip the court’s conservative lean. Still, a modest shift could impact some of the most controversial cases, such as a rare 5-4 decision that upheld the death sentence in Willie Manning’s case. 

A Kitchens win, coupled with Sullivan’s upset earlier this month, would deal the Republican Party rare setbacks in a state where it has been dominant and could put moderate forces in a position to grow their numbers further in future elections. 

“You might end up with a normal conservative court,” law professor Yeargain said, “instead of one of the most conservative courts in the country.”

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

Another former Hinds County sheriff candidate is guilty of lying to a pawn shop dealer when he bought a firearm, saying it was for him rather than a convicted felon. 

Torrence Mayfield, 53, pleaded guilty Wednesday to one charge of making a false statement to a firearm dealer, according to federal court documents. He was set to go to trial. 

On Oct. 26, 2021, Mayfield bought the firearm from the shop, which is a federal firearms licensee. He had to complete a written form to make the purchase, and on it he noted the firearm was for him. 

His sentencing is scheduled for March 4, 2025. Mayfield faces up to 10 years for the charge and a $250,000 fine. 

Mayfield is a former Jackson police officer and chief of the Edwards Police Department. 

He originally faced four counts. The additional charges were two counts of selling ammunition to a convicted felon and one count of selling a firearm to a convicted felon, according to a 2023 superseding indictment. 

It is against federal law for a felon to possess a firearm or ammunition. 

In 2021, Mayfield was one of 13 candidates for Hinds County sheriff, a position that opened up after the death of former sheriff Lee Vance. Mayfield received less than 1% of the vote. 

Another candidate in that race, Marshand Crisler, was found guilty weeks ago of soliciting and accepting a bribe and giving ammunition to a convicted felon during his 2021 campaign.  

Prosecutors revealed during trial that the convicted felon is Tonarri Moore, who worked as an FBI informant and recorded in-person meetings and conversations with Crisler.

During cross examination, Moore was questioned if the FBI asked him to wear a wire and talk with a policeman about a firearm. Moore invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and did not answer. 

Crisler’s attorney clarified that he was asking about Mayfield and asked if Moore still wanted to plead the fifth, to which Moore replied no. When asked, Moore said he talked with Mayfield about some bullets and that he planned to testify against him. 

Mayfield’s name also came up during some of the recorded conversations between Moore and Crisler, some of which were played during Crisler’s trial. 

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

Desks scooted into a circle, the day’s mental debris dumped into five quiet minutes of no-rules writing, and the high-schoolers were primed to tackle poetry. 

It was midweek, after school at Murrah High, with students gathering in yet one more classroom for yet more word work, this time their efforts aimed at the school’s award-winning literary/arts magazine, Pleiades. Adviser Sarah Ballard’s classroom provided a supportive spot to share, workshop and perfect pieces that may be bound for Scholastic Writing & Arts Awards submission as well as for the 2024-25 Pleiades. 

As each soft voice finished a final line, finger snaps, praise and feedback followed in friendly exchanges that were all about encouragement. Hesitant voices grew stronger as they weighed in, and suggestions bounced around on recitation tips, avenues to explore and personal details to flesh out.

“It’s given me a safe space … I think it was the very first safe space for my writing,” said Murrah senior Nadia Wright, Pleiades editor for the 2024-25 issue. “It’s my first sense of belonging in the writing community, and from then on, I’ve just been placed in these opportunities I never thought I would have,” including awards, scholarships and her selection as one of five National Student Poets of 2024 (the program’s first from Mississippi).

Founded in 1954, Pleiades had been an annual Murrah High project, but production sputtered in the 1990s. By the late 1990s into early 2000s, it was no longer published and had been nearly forgotten. The magazine was resurrected in 2012, when student interest fueled its return. Sarah Ballard, an English teacher at Murrah since 2005, had been advising the school’s Poetry Club for a few years when a transfer student asked, why didn’t Murrah have a literary magazine?

Ballard recalled a colleague’s mention of one in the past, called Pleiades. “That night, I went home and I googled Pleiades Murrah literary magazine,” Ballard said, “and I was blown away to find out that this was something that had been in existence for a very long time. It has won awards. It had award-winning writers associated with it, including Eudora Welty and Richard Ford and many others.”

Ballard shared that history with her students, and they revived a legacy. Their discovery of old issues of Pleiades, stashed in a school library drawer, further fed their mission. A letter shared with contacts and alumni raised donations that funded the publication for 2012, and a bit beyond.

“That was the beginning. … And, every year it has just gotten better and better,” Ballard said, with writing by Murrah students and “amazing” artwork through partnering with Wells APAC art program. She noted its best literary magazine honors from the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association for three years, a superior rating last year and “more awards than I can name” for short stories, poetry and design. 

But, fundraising became an annual stress point. “The school had no money to give us,” Ballard said. “We were completely funded, for years, through our own fundraising.” That took the form of Poetry Night events, GoFundMe efforts, even selling the magazine (albeit at a low price) to try and recoup some expenses.

Then, another group of alumni picked up the baton. When Murrah’s Class of 1970 had their 50th reunion in 2020, a small group felt strongly about commemorating their dramatic senior year, when integration brought so many changes to the public school.

“We wanted to do something for Murrah,” Susan Shands Jones said of the group that included Karen Ezelle Redhead (also of Jackson, Mississippi), Georgia Wier (now of Portland, Oregon) and the late Sarah Reid Winbigler DeYoung (of Maryville, Tennessee). Redhead, a retired teacher, knew of Ballard’s efforts to fund Pleiades production.

“This was a project ready and waiting for us,” Wier said. “It was particularly appropriate for us, too. … I had been editor of The Pleiades, and all of us had worked on it, so we grabbed onto that idea.” All brought plenty to the table, she said: lawyer Jones’ legal know-how and, with Redhead, connections to Murrah alums; Redhead’s school contacts; DeYoung’s student counseling at the University of Tennessee; and folklorist Wier’s own experience in the arts realm.

After an initial push within their own class raised funds, they aimed for longer-term support and started the Murrah Pleiades Literary and Visual Arts Fund at the Community Foundation for Mississippi in 2020, to create a steady income for its production and free up the magazine’s adviser to focus on fostering students’ creativity, rather than on fundraising.

With targeted outreach to additional classes and past Pleiades staffers, plus word of mouth, donations of all different amounts came in from throughout the country and across the state. Recurring contributions keep money coming in. “One doctor sent us $1,000 from Washington. It really hit some people — we were lucky,” Jones said.

“For my end, that has been a game changer,” Ballard said.

The group’s engagement extended even beyond the fund. “It makes you think, what can we do for these kids?” Jones said. When Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and fellow 1970 Murrah grad Beth Henley was a panelist at the Mississippi Book Festival this past September, Jones emailed her in advance, asking if she could visit the school, too. Henley agreed, Jones said, and her hour-long visit the following week “was magical.”

“It was amazing!” Murrah senior Ashley Carter agreed.

“We would love to keep doing supportive activities,” Jones said. Noting the awards, opportunities and scholarships that have opened up for students involved with Pleiades since its revival, Redhead added, “It really is a vehicle for these college-bound kids.”

Former Pleiades editor, Murrah and Yale graduate Jeffrey Caliedo, now an English teacher back at Murrah, said love for poetry and art drew him to the magazine, and its rewards lasted beyond his high school years. “Being able to create art, win awards and get recognition for it — that was a big thing for me,” he said. “I do think it offers a lot. It really builds your writing, and not just creative writing,” but also editing, feedback, attention to detail and a creative outlet for expression. “These students have a lot to say, and sometimes they really need a platform.”

Back in the classroom, young Pleiades writers keyed into qualities that keep them coming back after school, week after week. “For me, It’s really just about being a part of a community of writers,” said Murrah senior Sabréa Jordan, who values constructive conversations with fellow fans of reading and writing. “It has done a lot for me in my years as a student.” 

“It teaches us a lot about being ourselves,” Murrah senior Hannah King said, “about being authentically and unapologetically who we are, and expressing ourselves in however we see fit. It’s just such a free space. It’s a very welcoming space, and I feel like it could probably inspire someone to go out and make sure there are spaces like that everywhere.”

The Pleiades experience, plus exposure to writing camps, programs and workshops also shows them an attainable career path. “You realize writing isn’t just being a best-selling author,” senior Alexia Anthony said. “There’s a lot of different ways to succeed in that field, and if that’s what you love to do, then you should pursue it.”

As the young writers find their way forward, the support from generations that came before brings both endorsement and encouragement. 

“It’s a group of people who really see value in Murrah’s students’ voices today,” Ballard said. “Murrah looks very different now than it did when they were in school here. And, the population is different. But, it’s still a group of Jackson kids who are creative and smart, and have stories to tell, and have things to say.”

To support Murrah High’s Pleiades literary/arts magazine, visit the Community Foundation for Mississippi homepage formississippi.org, click Donate and select Murrah Pleiades, or simply click here.

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