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In this issue: How the U.S. Supreme Court could unwind voting rights for Black Mississippians; why the FBI is investigating the death of an incarcerated person killed by prison staff; why the Hinds County public defender’s office says it is in crisis mode; and an update on the long-troubled Raymond Detention Center.
— Caleb Bedillion and Daja E. Henry
Black influence over Mississippi Supreme Court hangs in the balance
In the coming months, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on a case that could upend the landmark Voting Rights Act. This would undermine voting discrimination lawsuits across the county.
If the Civil Rights-era law falls, Mississippi would find itself on the front lines of the nation’s newly unsettled legal landscape.
A federal judge ruled last year that Mississippi’s Black voters don’t have a fair shot in elections that choose justices for the state’s nine-member Supreme Court.
Of the nine justices, just one is Black. In the state’s history, there have only been four Black justices on the Mississippi Supreme Court. None of them had overlapping tenures.
U.S. District Court Judge Sharion Aycock ruled that state legislators should draw a new voting district map for state Supreme Court elections that doesn’t discriminate against Black voters. Aycock also said she’s likely to order special elections for at least some seats on the Mississippi Supreme Court.
Lawmakers have started the process, but that effort might get derailed if the U.S. Supreme Court rules before the Legislature adjourns for the year in early April. If the nation’s highest court rules after April, it’s almost certain to spur complicated legal arguments around the future of Black influence over Mississippi’s courts.
Uncertainty in the case is already affecting a regularly scheduled election for one justice’s seat in the fall.
The Marshall Project - Jackson’s Caleb Bedillion has the story.
FBI investigating Mississippi state prison death
When Melvin Cancer died while incarcerated at Central Mississippi Correctional Facility last year, Mississippi Department of Corrections officials told his family he had suffered a heart attack.
A year later, the FBI is investigating his death as a killing at the hands of prison staff. It is the only investigation into a death caused by use of force at a Mississippi state prison in the past decade.
Records obtained by The Marshall Project - Jackson and Mississippi Today show Cancer died from blunt force trauma. Incarcerated people told Cancer’s niece that he had been beaten in the shower.
The Marshall Project - Jackson’s Daja E. Henry and Mississippi Today’s Jerry Mitchell have the story.
Raymond Detention Center ‘woefully understaffed,’ overcrowded, receiver says
After making a surprise visit to assess conditions at the Raymond Detention Center, federal Judge Carlton Reeves said he left “extraordinarily depressed, disappointed and angry.”
He described men living in desperation, some sleeping on the floors in the middle of the day, and others who have been designated as severely mentally ill left to live in filth.
Reeves presides over the decade-long court battle that led to receiver Wendell France taking over operations of the jail in October 2025. In a February court hearing, Reeves described his visit and heard progress updates four months after the start of the receivership.
France, the receiver, listed many of the same problems that have plagued the facility over the years. The facility is “woefully understaffed,” he said, and still overcrowded. Many people languish in the facility for lengthy periods because of delays in the legal process. Cell doors still do not lock. Light fixtures, mattresses and toilets have been destroyed by the largely unsupervised incarcerated people quicker than maintenance can do repairs.
The jail has a capacity of 420 people. As of the February hearing, there were 500 people housed there.
In its budget, the county committed to increase the number of authorized positions for detention officers to 120. France said those positions have not yet been filled. According to a June 2025 monitoring report, there were 71 detention officers.
“We will never reach a constitutional, sustainable jail if we don’t increase the staff,” France said. A facility with 500 people cannot be functional with 60 to 80 correctional officers, he said.
France noted one point of progress. The receiver’s team has installed 63 additional surveillance cameras, and is budgeted for a total of 104 to be installed to monitor the housing units and the jail’s perimeter. Last April, 37-year-old Anthony Johnson was killed in a segregation unit where there were no functioning cameras. Just over half of the facility’s 202 cameras were working at the time.
Hinds County public defender warns of ‘constitutional crisis’
High turnover in her office. Crowded, slow-moving jail dockets. A county jail that remains stressed to the max. Hinds County’s chief public defender, Gail Lowery, says that the strain on her office and the local justice system is at crisis level.
Lowery says she needs a cash infusion of $350,000 to recruit and retain lawyers. A fully staffed office would be better equipped to move cases faster and help lower the jail population, say experts in a coalition that has formed to support Lowery’s request.
In Mississippi, counties bear almost all the cost of providing poor criminal defendants with their constitutional right to legal counsel.
The state government has funneled some money toward public defense in Hinds County, but most of the financial burden still rests with local officials.
And those local officials say they don’t have $350,000 available. In a March 2 meeting, Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham told Lowery that county officials would examine whether at least some extra money can be directed toward the Hinds County Public Defender’s Office but didn’t lay out a timeline.
Turnover is so high in the public defender’s office that only seven of 14 attorneys in the office have been on the job more than six months.
“If you are turning your staff over at that rate, how many lawyers is a person going to have in the … life of their case?” State Public Defender André de Gruy said. “That needs to stop. It slows down the process, and it isn’t fair.”
With her office in charge of defending most of the people locked up in the Raymond Detention Center, Lowery said public defenders are facing punishing caseloads — attorneys have sometimes been asked to handle as many as 400 cases.
Lowery and de Gruy say salaries simply are not competitive.
A first-year public defender with no experience makes $65,000 in Hinds County. The highest county-paid lawyer earns $80,000 a year. Most of the county’s public defenders are paid by the county, without any state assistance.
However, a first-year assistant district attorney makes $120,000, with a salary set by state law and funded by state government.
Also in the news
Jackson police chief confirmed, salary to be determined. RaShall Brackney was confirmed as chief of the Jackson Police Department by the City Council in a 6-1 vote last week. Brackney was previously chief of the Charlottesville Police Department in Virginia. Mississippi Today Brackney was offered a salary of $150,000, higher than the salary cap for the position. WLBT
Key evidence missing. Key DNA evidence in a rape and manslaughter case out of the Mississippi Delta’s Washington County has vanished, defense lawyers say on appeal. They want the conviction of King Brown Jr. thrown out if the evidence can’t be found. Local officials disagree about the chain of custody for the evidence. Mississippi Today
Memoir from death row. Incarcerated writer Joesph Patri Brown published a memoir, composed of vignettes and poems about his experiences living on death row. Mississippi Today
Fire marshal investigating Parchman’s Unit 29. Deputies from the state fire marshal’s office investigated the prison’s long-troubled unit after a winter storm knocked out power and heat in January. The ongoing investigation is looking at the storm response, fire code violations and “other problems,” Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said. Mississippi Today
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If you’ve experienced or witnessed something in the criminal justice system that you think we should look into further, contact us through this form or jackson@themarshallproject.org. All tips are confidential.
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