‘Hopelessly deadlocked’: Judge declares mistrial in Tim Herrington trial
After nearly 10 hours of jury deliberation, a Lafayette County circuit judge declared a mistrial on Wednesday in the capital murder case trial of Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., a Grenada native accused of killing a fellow University of Mississippi graduate to preserve their secret sexual relationship.
Judge Kelly Luther’s ruling came around 8:25 p.m. after the jury informed him a second time that they were unable to reach an agreement. Both times, the jurors were gridlocked 11-1, and it is not known in which direction they were leaning as the judge told them to not say if they had more votes for a guilty verdict or acquittal.
“All right, I thank you for your effort,” Luther said. “You’ve been out nine and a half hours. I’m gonna declare a mistrial.”
The prosecution had built a circumstantial case against Herrington, arguing he was the last person to see Jimmie “Jay” Lee alive before the avid social media user stopped responding to texts and calls from family and friends on July 8, 2022. His body was never found. In October, a judge declared Lee legally dead at the request of his parents.
The first time the jury informed Luther they were gridlocked, around 3 p.m., they asked what would happen if they couldn’t reach a verdict. Luther ordered them back for further deliberations.
The second time, the judge asked for a show of hands if any jurors believed they could reach a verdict.
“I don’t want you tilting the windmills,” Luther said.
Luther then informed the defense and prosecution that he would entertain a motion for a new trial in the next few weeks and that he assumed, if the case returned to court, the two parties would once again seek a new venue from which to select a jury for the case.
“Just my mind reading the jury, I think we were hopelessly deadlocked,” Luther said.
Herrington will remain on bond.
READ MORE: Jury deliberations begin in trial of Ole Miss grad accused of killing Jimmie ‘Jay’ Lee
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Podcast: Jeremy McClain talks Huff Hire
So much to cover on this week’s podcast but Southern Miss’s surprising hire of Marshall coach Charles Huff tops the list, and USM athletic director Jeremy McClain joins the podcast to discuss. Also, a recap of the high school state championships, more college football and, in case no one has noticed, we have two Top 25 basketball teams in Mississippi.
Stream all episodes here.
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Mississippi’s oldest ad agency closes, new firm opens with its former executives
The decades-old, Jackson-based advertising agency GodwinGroup has closed its doors, and some of its principal team leaders are now part of a new firm.
Ridgeland-based Ad5 was formed when a group of Jackson-area advertising executives partnered with Princeton Partners, a 60-year-old national agency based in Princeton, New Jersey.
Philip Shirley, who was a senior partner, chairman and CEO of GodwinGroup, is a senior partner in the new marketing and advertising agency.
“Our goal was to combine the experience and expertise of a group of senior-level ad professionals primarily from the Jackson area and nearby states with the brand marketing and digital marketing expertise of Princeton Partners,” Shirley said in a news release announcing Ad5. “We have known and worked closely with the owners and management of Princeton Partners for over 25 years, so we knew it was smart to join forces.”
Tom Sullivan, president of Princeton Partners, is chairman and a senior partner of the new firm.
The new company will focus on offering marketing services in banking, healthcare, education, nonprofits, workforce development, tourism, government agencies and consumer marketing, according to the news release.
Ad5 local management includes Jeff Russell, who was a senior partner and president at Godwin, as president and partner, and Lauren Mozingo, digital marketing specialist at Godwin, as managing director and partner. They have local day-to-day management responsibilities for the new entity, according to the release, and will work with Kevin Kuchinski, managing partner of Ad5 and Princeton Partners. Ad5 serves clients operating from Texas to Florida and up to Kentucky, according to the release.
GodwinGroup was the state’s oldest advertising group. It shuttered its doors Friday.
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AG Lynn Fitch says Auditor Shad White overstepped authority paying consultant $2 million
At the request of a top lawmaker, Attorney General Lynn Fitch opined that state Auditor Shad White lacked the authority to hire a consultant for $2 million to look for waste and fat in state government.
Fitch’s opinion said White has the authority to conduct “financial audits only,” but does not have authority to conduct “managerial studies” without a written request from the governor or the Legislature.
A spokesman for the auditor said on Wednesday that the office did have legal authority to commission the study — and added Fitch’s legal opinion is likely the result of the consultant finding that Fitch and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the state Senate, took the state plane on a trip to an out-of-state college baseball game.
This trip was not mentioned in the consultant’s report White released to the media and public in October, although White recommended getting rid of the state airplane. White previously denied a records request from Mississippi Today for any documents other than the 59-page report he made public. The auditor’s spokesman did not specify on Wednesday what baseball game he was referencing.
In a statement, Hosemann said ““The state attorney general issued an opinion yesterday which clearly states the state auditor was unauthorized to spend $2 million of taxpayer funds. The state laws on expenditures of taxpayer funds apply equally to the state auditor, and the funds should be returned to the taxpayers.”
Fitch Chief of Staff Michelle Williams sent a statement in response to White’s office.
“Supporting Mississippi student-athletes representing Mississippi in the College World Series is what public officials representing Mississippians should do,” Williams said. “Spending $2 million on a report without lawful authority to spend is not.”
Lawmakers have been questioning whether White’s study on waste was, itself, wasteful spending. Some have noted the result was mostly a rehash, amalgam of long-discussed, never enacted ideas to cut government spending that could have been cobbled together after spending a day or two on Google, going through Mississippi press clippings and perusing old legislative watchdog reports and bills.
READ MORE: Cutting fat in state government: Everything old is new again
Lawmakers and Mississippi politicos have questioned whether White’s report, released with fanfare at a press conference and subsequent media circuit, was more a campaign effort for his stated 2027 gubernatorial aspirations.
White, who has compared his efficiency study to President-elect Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE efforts at cutting federal waste, has written off any questions of his consultant study as deep state pushback.
State Sen. John Polk, R-Hattiesburg, chair of the appropriations subcommittee that oversees the budget for White’s office, requested the attorney general opinion on White’s study. Polk noted the $2 million White spent never came up when setting his budget for the year, which is “quite unusual.” He said White has some autonomy on “escalating” his budget, but he questions whether this large increase met legal criteria.
“I’m concerned he has broken the law, and that is not a good thing for a state auditor,” Polk told Mississippi Today on Wednesday.
Polk noted the AG’s opinion doesn’t carry the weight of law, and the opinion itself notes such opinions “are prospective determinations on matters of state law only and can neither sanction nor invalidate past actions.”
“What I want to focus on is how going forward we control things like this, prevent them from happening,” Polk said. He said he wants lawmakers to look further into White’s consultant contract, how the auditor chose the Boston firm and other issues.
Polk said he and other lawmakers have noted the study produced “nothing new … the same old, same old” in suggestions for government efficiency.
“It’s things we’ve tried, or talked about, or in some cases are already doing,” Polk said. “… The (consultants’) contract says they would talk with agency heads as part of the study. I haven’t found an agency head yet that says they talked with them. That bothers me.”
Jacob Walters, a spokesman for White, said Hosemann “probably” had Polk request the attorney general’s opinion.
Walters speculated Hosemann was upset that White’s study “uncovered” that he and AG Fitch “took a taxpayer-funded trip” on the state airplane to travel to an out-of-state college baseball game.
“This is why Auditor White called to eliminate the state airplane in Project Momentum,” said Walters, alluding to the name White gave the Boston consulting group study.
He said many Mississippi politicians, like those in Washington, “dislike Auditor White’s willingness to upset the applecart on behalf of taxpayers.”
“Your days of wasting our money are over,” Walters said.
Whether or not White commissioned the study to raise his profile for a potential run for governor, the issue is firmly mired in 2027 politics. White and Fitch are considered likely candidates for the office, as is Hosemann, who oversees the Senate and for whom Polk is a top lieutenant. Any battle over White’s budget or spending the $2 million in the upcoming legislative session is likely to be politically charged.
White has been politically sparring with Hosemann and Fitch, and the internecine fight among Republicans with gubernatorial aspirations is heating up as the Jan. 7 start of the 2025 legislative session draws near.
Other politicians, including the current chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, have accused White of grandstanding for political gain, and questioned his writing a book about the ongoing Mississippi welfare fraud scandal he helped investigate.
White’s scrutinized report said Mississippi could sell the state’s airplane, make officials use commercial or charter flights, and save more than $1 million a year. The existence of the state airplane and intense scrutiny of travel on it by governors and others have been debated off and on for decades. Former Gov. Phil Bryant, who appointed White to the auditor’s office, pitched selling one of the state’s planes when it had two a major political platform and vowed to take commercial flights for state-related travel.
White’s consultant report includes recommendations such as reducing government officials’ travel spending. This was a hot topic for several years after a 2013 investigation by the Clarion-Ledger showed that even during lean budget years, government officials still spent tens of millions of dollars on travel, domestic and abroad, and had a massive fleet of government vehicles with dubious need for them. The Legislature clamped down on travel and agencies enacted fleet rules and promoted mileage reimbursement for personal vehicles. But according to White’s report, travel spending has been growing and again needs a major haircut.
The report also found that, compared to other states, Mississippi government is spending too much on office space and insurance for state buildings and leased property, and on advertising and public relations for state agencies — again, issues that have been pointed out multiple times over the last couple of decades by lawmakers, journalists and government watchdog reports.
White’s report recommends the state consolidate and reform its purchasing and look for better deals when it buys goods and services. That should sound familiar: Two lawmakers in particular, Sen. Polk and Rep. Jerry Turner, led a serious crusade on purchasing reform for several years and managed to push through some meaningful changes. But many of those have been undone or are now ignored.
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Jury deliberations begin in trial of Ole Miss grad accused of killing Jimmie ‘Jay’ Lee
In the final hours of Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr.’s capital murder trial Wednesday, his defense attorney argued that too many open questions exist for a jury to convict him of killing a fellow University of Mississippi graduate who was prominent in the local LGBTQ+ community.
Kevin Horan’s closing arguments garnered objections from the prosecution, who earlier in the day argued that Herrington was the last person to see Jimmie “Jay” Lee alive before the avid social media user stopped responding to texts and calls from family and friends on July 8, 2022.
The case is now in the hands of the jury.
That Lee’s silence has continued ever since is proof enough, the prosecution argued, that he is dead. In October, a judge declared Lee legally dead at the request of his parents.
But Lee’s body has not been found and without that, the prosecution’s case rests almost entirely on circumstantial evidence, opening the door for Herrington’s defense to raise a host of doubts. During his closing arguments, Horan, who is also a state representative from Herrington’s hometown of Grenada, kept gesturing to a yellow legal notepad that he told the jury contained a list of questions the prosecution had yet to answer.
Most significantly, Horan told the jury the prosecution could not establish that Lee was dead when Herrington left his apartment in the early morning hours of July 8 to buy duct tape at Walmart.
“There’s no evidence whatsoever that Lee was not alive at that time,” Horan said. “Think about why that’s important.”
In a rebuttal, Gwen Agho, a special prosecutor from Hinds County who assisted Lafayette County District Attorney Ben Creekmore, told the jury that open questions are not the same as reasonable doubt. Anything can happen, she said, including elephants falling from the sky.
“Opposing counsel wants to talk about possibilities, but we are not here about possibilities,” Agho said. “We’re here about reasonable doubt.”
Agho tied Lee’s moment of death to that of his cellphone’s — 7:28 a.m., not long after the last time Lee’s phone ever pinged at a cell tower and right before Herrington allegedly parked Lee’s car at Molly Barr Trails, an apartment complex where neither Herrington nor Lee lived. Lee’s car was eventually towed from Molly Barr.
Lee “never let anyone borrow his car,” Agho said. “We also know when the car is found, all his things are in it, the things he would need to move on to live a life.”
Much of the prosecutions’ closing argument focused on Herrington’s alleged lies about his sexuality and relationship to Lee. Oxford Police Department detectives testified earlier in the trial that Herrington provided them conflicting information about the hours leading up to Lee’s disappearance, according to the Associated Press.
“Not only did he lie to his family and his friends about his sexuality, being on the down low … he lied to the church … then he lied to the police about everything,” Creekmore said.
Creekmore alleged that Herrington killed Lee to hide their secret relationship.
“Tim Herrington ended Jay Lee’s life to protect his own,” Creekmore said.
Herrington was arrested on July 22, 2022, two weeks after Lee went missing. Members of Herrington’s family, many of whom are involved in a prominent church in Grenada, have maintained his innocence.
Lee’s body has not been found since, and it’s unclear the extent of OPD’s efforts to find it.
After the prosecution wrapped its rebuttal, Judge Kelly Luther told the courtroom their guess is as good as his as to when, or if, the jury will reach a verdict.
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Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin calls college football’s crammed calendar ‘a dumb system’
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin on Tuesday called college football’s current setup “a dumb system,” and he wasn’t referring to the playoff selection process for a change.
Kiffin, who has been outspoken about his team and others from the powerhouse Southeastern Conference getting left out of the College Football Playoff, ripped the college calendar that forces many coaches to juggle a transfer window while preparing for bowl games. It came on the heels of several coaches having to squeeze national signing day into a week of preparation for conference championship games.
“We just try to make the best of the situations,” Kiffin said during a Zoom call for coaches headed to the Gator Bowl. “It really is a dumb system.”
Kiffin’s comments came after first-year Duke coach Manny Diaz confirmed that starting quarterback Maalik Murphy had entered the transfer portal, leaving Henry Belin or Grayson Loftis to start the Jan. 2 bowl game in Jacksonville.
“Think about what we’re talking about or what (Diaz) just had to address: a quarterback going in the portal,” Kiffin said. “Just think about what we’re talking about. The season’s not over yet, and there’s a free-agency window open.
“Just think if the NFL was getting ready for the AFC, NFC playoffs, postseason, and players are in free agency already. It’s a really poor system, but we just try to manage the best we can through it, and hopefully someday it’ll get fixed.”
Kiffin also said his quarterback, senior Jaxson Dart, is planning to play in the Gator Bowl. The 16th-ranked Rebels (9-3), though, could have some other starters opt out.
The Blue Devils (9-3) closed the regular season with three consecutive wins to improve their bowl spot, all of them coming after Diaz told his players, “The more we win, the warmer the (postseason) destination.”
Now, they’ll make the trip without Murphy. The California native transferred to Duke after one year at Texas. He completed 60% of his passes for 2,933 yards, with 26 touchdowns and 12 interceptions while starting all 12 games in 2024. He led Duke to the program’s most regular-season wins since 2014.
“From our standpoint, we adjust,” Diaz said. “This is the new normal. What we’re not doing right now is we’re not on the road recruiting. We’re not on the road babysitting our commits who, up until last year, were signing on the third Wednesday of December.
“So the fact we’ve already had a signing day, that takes one of the distressers out of December and removes that. However the landscape changes, we adapt to it. That’s what football coaches are; we’re problem-solvers and we’re adjusters, and we adjust.”
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Rep. Bennie Thompson says he’s not intimidated by Trump jail threats
Mississippi’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson said he will not be intimidated by threats from President-elect Donald Trump that he and other members of the special House committee he chaired “should go to jail.”
Thompson, who chaired the special House Jan. 6 Committee that looked at the efforts of Trump and others to overturn the results of the 2020 election, was cited by Trump in a weekend network news interview.
Referring to Thompson and former U.S. Rep. Liz Chaney, R-Wyoming, who also was on the special committee, Trump said, “Chaney was behind it and so was Bennie Thomson and everybody on that committee. For what they did, honestly they should go to jail.”
In a statement in response to Trump’s charges, Thompson said, “Our committee was fully authorized by the House, all rules were properly followed, and our work product stands on its own. In fact, in the two years since we have completed our work, no court or legal body has refuted it.
“Donald Trump and his minions can make all the assertions they want – but no election, no conspiracy theory, no pardon, and no threat of vengeful prosecution can rewrite history or wipe away his responsibility for the deadly violence on that horrific day. We stood up to him before, and we will continue to do so.”
It is not clear what criminal charges House members, who like Trump have constitutional protections for actions taken while in office, and former members could face.
In a social media post, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, an avid Trump defender, criticized the threat of legal action against Thompson and other members of the Jan. 6 Committee.
“The fact is that there is no viable criminal case to be made against the J6 Committee members for their investigation or report,” Turley said on social media. “We need to move beyond the rage rhetoric if this country is going to come together to face the tough challenges ahead.”
In an essay Turley criticized the actions of the Jan. 6 Committee, but said members of Congress are protected by the U.S. Constitution from prosecution for action related to their official duties.
There have been multiple other instances where Trump and his supporters have threatened to jail people.
For instance, Kash Patel, who is Trump’s nominee to head the FBI, has spoken of jailing journalists despite the freedom of press protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution.
In a recent interview, Patel said, “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But, yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
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