Mississippi Today
Tupelo city councilwoman reaches plea deal with prosecutors over voter raffle comments
Tupelo Councilwoman Nettie Davis on Monday reached an agreement with local prosecutors and a state judge to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating an election law, but she will avoid the penalty of being removed from office.
Senior Circuit Judge Paul Funderburk signed off on a โnon-adjudicationโ agreement that accepts Davis’ guilty plea, requires her to pay $5,000 with $4,500 suspended, pay $227.75 in court fees and avoid a public trial.ย
Jim Waide, Davis’ attorney, told Mississippi Today that he wishes state prosecutors would have never brought the charge forward against his client, but he believes Monday’s plea deal with prosecutors was appropriate.
โOnce the charges were brought, we didn’t have any choice but to accept an agreement where she wouldn’t be removed from office,โ Waide said.ย
Her criminal case stemmed from comments she made in a 2021 โget out the voteโ rally encouraging people to vote in the municipal elections. In her recorded comments, she said if voters brought back an โI votedโ sticker, their name would be placed in a raffle for cash prizes.
The video did not record Davis advocating for any specific candidate or a particular political party. The raffle also never took place.
John Weddle, a northeast Mississippi district attorney, alleged Davis’ comments violated a law that prohibits anyone from offering โany prize, cash award or other items of value to be raffled, drawn for, played for or contested for in order to encourage a person to vote or to refrain from voting in any election.โ
The penalty for violating the statute is only a misdemeanor and carries no jail time. But if the person convicted is an elected official, like Davis, the law calls for them to be removed from office.
Weddle, a Republican, began investigating Davis’ comments shortly after the video circulated online. He, along with Secretary of State Michael Watson, issued a press release just two days after her comments saying prosecutors would investigate the remarks.
The district attorney’s office presented Davis’ case to a grand jury, and it returned an indictment, sparking community leaders to decry Weddle’s prosecution of the local figure, a Democrat and civil rights veteran, and claim the efforts were politically motivated.
Those calls grew even more acute after Mississippi Today reported that a Republican candidate for state Senate, Lauren Smith, appeared to acknowledge in a video that she had voted in a Lee County district outside of her legal residence.ย
Smith’s political opponent and an independent election attorney believed Smith’s remarks were an admission she broke the law. Smith rejected that claim and said she did not violate any statute.
It’s unclear what will happen to Smith. Waide attempted to subpoena Smith’s testimony for Davis’ trial, but Monday’s agreement means she will not have to testify in the criminal case.
Weddle appears to have filed a sealed motion with the court, but it’s unclear what the motion specifically states. On behalf of Davis, Waide filed court documents saying Weddle’s sealed motion was an effort to block Smith from testifying in the case.
Waide alleged in the court document that Weddle was selectively prosecuting local candidates based on race and political party affiliation.
โEvidence will establish that the District Attorney has known since April 2023 of this misdemeanor election law violation by a white Republican candidate,โ Waide’s motion reads. โThe District Attorney has not announced any intent to prosecute this misdemeanor election law violation by a white Republican candidate.โ
Weddle did not respond to a request for comment.
Incumbent state Sen. Chad McMahan defeated Smith in the Republican primary on August 8 by garnering around 55% of the vote.
A Lee County citizen has also filed an affidavit against McMahan accusing him of โvoter intimidation.โ A judge has yet to rule on whether the allegation meets the the threshold for a criminal act, and McMahan claims the allegations are a โpolitical stunt.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.
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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.
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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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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