MFP Contributor
Eddie Lee Howard served 26 years on death row at the Mississippi Penitentiary at Parchman before his conviction was overturned. In his case, discredited medical examiner Steven Hayne relied on unreliable bite-mark evidence from Dr. Michael West. Howard isn’t the only man such evidence sent to prison.
Disability Rights Mississippi—a private, nonprofit, federally mandated protection and advocacy organization, just released a report, “Cruel and Unusual Punishment in Mississippi Prisons: A Tale of Abuse, Discrimination and Undue Death Sentences,” to describe realities for people with disabilities on the inside. Disability Rights Mississippi is accusing the Mississippi Department of Corrections of “subjecting offenders to cruel and unusual punishments” such as the denial of medical care and the refusal to make required accommodations for inmates with disabilities.
With long voting lines in the state and across the country expected on Nov. 3, voters could be subjected to more electioneering outside the polls than in years past. Electioneering is defined as “the activity of trying to persuade people to vote for a particular political party.”
Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson (pictured), along with Attorney General Lynn Fitch, are targets of a new legal demand for an injunction to stop them from blocking absentee ballots for Mississippi voters with underlying conditions that make serious COVID-19 infection or death more likely.
Mississippians with medical conditions that cause higher risk for COVID-19 infection and death are suing the State of Mississippi over stringent rules that block them from voting absentee.
Mississippi State University’s campus honors two prominent Confederate leaders, Stephen D. Lee and James Z. George, who helped keep Black Mississippians from voting and students of all races studying revisionist, false history about the Confederacy for generations. Is it time to confront those symbols?
Officer Officer Canyon Boykin shot and killed Ricky Ball in Columbus, Miss., in 2015. Attorney General Lynn Fitch dropped the charges.
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