Mississippi
State Senate OKs bill affecting majority-Black city
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The majority-white and Republican-led Mississippi Senate voted Tuesday to pass its version of a bill that would allow an expanded role for state police and appointed judges inside the majority-Black capital city of Jackson, which is led by Democrats.
“It is vastly improved from where it started, but it is still a snake,” Democratic Sen. John Horhn of Jackson said of the bill during Tuesday’s debate.
Critics say that in a state where older African Americans still remember the struggle to gain access to the ballot decades ago, the bill is a paternalistic attempt to intrude on local decision-making and voting rights in the capital, which has the highest percentage of Black residents of any major U.S. city.
The Mississippi House — which is also majority-white and Republican-led — passed the first version of the bill last month. The House version would have created two permanent new courts inside Jackson with judges appointed by the Mississippi Supreme Court chief justice. The current justice is a conservative white man.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, who is Black, said the proposal reminds him of apartheid.
The Senate voted 34-15 to pass its revised version of the bill Tuesday, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.
Supporters of the bill say they are trying to improve public safety in Jackson, which has had more than 100 homicides during each of the past three years.
“We all know the nation is watching. They have been,” Republican Sen. Brice Wiggins of Pascagoula said before Tuesday’s Senate vote. “And with this bill, we are standing up for the citizens of Jackson and for our state capital.”
The bill returns to the House, which could accept the Senate changes or seek final negotiations in the next few weeks.
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has decried crime in Jackson but has not said whether he would sign the bill if it lands on his desk.
The Senate version removed the permanent new courts. Instead, it would allow the chief justice to appoint one judge to work within the existing court system through December 2026.
Hinds County, which is home to Jackson, currently has four elected circuit court judges who handle criminal and civil cases. Mississippi is already spending some of its federal COVID-19 relief money to pay for four appointed judges to temporarily help the elected judges in Hinds County with a backlog of cases that developed when courts were closed because of the pandemic. The Senate version of the bill would add a fifth appointed temporary judge.
The Senate version also would authorize the state-run Capitol Police to patrol the entire city of Jackson. Currently, Capitol Police officers patrol in downtown and some nearby neighborhoods where state government buildings are located. Officers from the city-run Jackson Police Department patrol the entire city.
The House version of the bill would have expanded Capitol Police territory into affluent parts of Jackson, including shopping areas and predominantly white neighborhoods — but not into the entire city.
Arkela Lewis, whose 25-year-old son Jaylen Lewis was shot to death by Capitol Police last year, told lawmakers Monday that the proposal to expand the territory of the state-run police department terrifies and angers her.
Texas
Execution delayed for death row inmate who cut out his eyes
HOUSTON (AP) — Next month’s scheduled execution of a Texas death row inmate, whose attorneys say gouged out both of his eyes — each a separate incident — because of severe mental illness, was delayed by a judge on Tuesday.
Andre Thomas had been set to be executed on April 5, sentenced to death for fatally stabbing in March 2004 his estranged wife Laura Christine Boren, 20, their 4-year-old son Andre Lee and her 13-month-old daughter Leyha Marie Hughes, cutting out the hearts of the two children.
He later told police God had instructed him to commit the killings and that he believed all three were demons. The killings of Boren and her children shocked Sherman, a city of about 45,000 residents 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of Dallas.
State District Judge Jim Fallon on Tuesday issued an order withdrawing the execution date. Fallon’s decision came after Thomas’ lawyers had requested additional time to prepare for a court hearing to review his competency.
The Supreme Court has prohibited the death penalty for the intellectually disabled, but not for people with serious mental illness. However, it has ruled that a person must be competent to be executed.
“We are confident that when we present the evidence of Mr. Thomas’s incompetence, the court will agree that executing him would violate the Constitution,” Maurie Levin, Thomas’ attorney, wrote in a statement. “Guiding this blind psychotic man to the gurney for execution offends our sense of humanity and serves no legitimate purpose.”
His attorneys have said that after he gouged out the second eye, he ate it to ensure that the government could not hear his thoughts.
More than 100 faith leaders and others had earlier asked Gov. Greg Abbott to stop the 39-year-old’s execution.
J. Kerye Ashmore, with the Grayson County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, said the faith leaders and others calling for clemency for Thomas are not fully informed about the case and have not read any reports or evaluations about his mental state.
“None of these people know anything about the case. They are parroting what the defense has told them,” Ashmore said.
Fallon’s order gives Thomas’ attorneys until July 5 to file their motion asking that the inmate’s competency be reviewed before his execution can proceed. If Fallon decides Thomas’ lawyers have presented sufficient evidence to go forward, experts will be appointed to examine him, and other evidence will be reviewed by the judge before he would make a decision.
“We’re willing to do that. We’re willing for that process to happen and let the judge make the decision. That’s all we want,” Ashmore said.
Levin called Thomas “one of the most mentally ill prisoners in Texas history,” adding that “he is not competent to be executed, lacking a rational understanding of the state’s reason for his execution.”
Ashmore said he’s reviewed records that would seem to indicate Thomas knew about his execution date and that he’s aware that he’s in prison because he killed his estranged wife and her kids.
