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District Judge Carlton W. Reeves has appointed Wendell M. France, Sr., as the receiver for Hinds County Raymond Detention Center. He starts work tomorrow, Nov. 1, and will not take over operational control until Jan. 1 2023.
Federal Judge Carlton Reeves is placing control of the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond under a yet-to-be-determined receiver to oversee the beleaguered and dangerous facility. Reeves said he had considered detaining county officials due to the dangerous conditions at the jail—and that a new jail would not solve deep-seated problems with management and staffing.
Special agents from the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor arrested Hinds County District 2 Election Commissioner Toni Johnson, 36, and businessman Cedric Cornelius, 46, on Friday, Feb. 18, 2022, as alleged accomplices in defrauding the county. An alleged collaborator, Sudie Jones-Teague, surrendered herself at the Hinds County Detention Center on Feb. 22.
State senators from Jackson are asking the Mississippi Legislature for millions of dollars to help fund additional police and misdemeanor jail beds to keep those charged with low-level crimes who cannot afford bail locked up as a strategy to prevent violence as it rises in the capital city, they say. They are not asking for funds to support earlier interventions that a BOTEC Analysis study of Jackson crime recommended in 2016—which the Legislature authorized for $500,000 in taxpayer dollars. Kayode Crown reports.
On Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021, Hinds County responded to the U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Mississippi Carlton W. Reeves’ Nov. 23 request to convince the court not to find it in contempt for its handling of the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond in the wake of the 2016 U.S. Department of Justice consent decree with the county.Â
Hinds County has until the middle of this month to convince a federal judge to not hold it in civil contempt and take over the running of the Hinds County Detention Center in Raymond.
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