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Nearly a year after a north Mississippi judge acquitted a 22-year-old who stabbed a man in the neck, nearly killing him, attorney general’s office lawyers want to re-prosecute the case. 

They are appealing the ruling, saying the victim’s absence at trial, the reasoning the judge used for his ruling, did not violate the defendant’s constitutional rights and prevent trial from proceeding.

But legal experts say a retrial can be a high barrier to overcome because of double jeopardy,  a clause in the U.S. and state Constitution that prevents defendants from being retried for the same crime following an acquittal or conviction. 

“This is a textbook case of double jeopardy,” said Matt Steffey, a professor at Mississippi College School of Law. 

In his May 11, 2023 dismissal of the attempted murder indictment and acquittal for Lane Mitchell, Union County Circuit Court Judge Kent Smith focused on the victim’s absence, finding that it violated the defendant’s due process and compulsory process rights, which is the ability to subpoena and secure favorable witnesses to testify. 

“This precedent thus makes the state responsible for and unable to go forward on nearly every criminal cause when a recalcitrant victim refuses to appear at trial,” the state wrote in a March 4 appellant’s brief filed with the Court of Appeals. 

The victim, Russell Rogers of Tennessee, nearly bled out and suffered a stroke. As a result of the stabbing, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental issues and placed under a conservatorship. 

The state is asking the Court of Appeals to correct the trial court’s “misstatements of law.” Alternatively, the state is asking the court to reverse and remand the trial judge’s order and in its place issue an order that would allow the state to retry Mitchell. 

The defense has 30 days to respond to the appellant’s brief, which is expected sometime early next month if no extensions are granted. The state will then have time to reply, and then the case can be submitted. Oral arguments were not requested. 

The 2019 stabbing

On Feb. 9, 2019, Rogers spent several hours in  Tallahatchie Gourmet in New Albany. When then-18-year-old Mitchell arrived there, he joined his parents and their friends in the bar area. 

Video presented in court and included in records as pictures shows Mitchell, about an hour after his arrival, taking a knife from the bar and holding it behind his back as Rogers talked with a waitress. The manager  – Mitchell’s father – and Rogers then talked, and when Rogers reacted negatively, Mitchell approached from behind and stabbed Rogers in the neck three times. 

Mitchell testified he was trying to defend his father and the waitress, according to court records. The defendant said he thought Rogers had a gun, but in fact he was unarmed. 

Mitchell and Rogers had not met or talked prior to the stabbing, according to court records. 

Months after the stabbing, a Tennessee probate court found Rogers met criteria to be considered disabled and appointed his father, Robert Rogers, as his conservator. Russell Rogers remains under the conservatorship. 

Mitchell enrolled in two colleges while under indictment, first at the University of Mississippi and then Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Cordova, Tennessee, where he graduated days before his 2023 trial began. 

The attorney general’s office took over the case in 2021 when the district attorney recused himself from the case. 

Victim testimony central in case 

Mississippi law states victims can exercise their right to be present and heard in court proceedings, but their absence does not prevent the court from moving forward with a proceeding. Victims can be served with a subpoena, which Mitchell’s attorneys sought to do with Rogers.

The state argues the trial court seemed to ignore the Tennessee probate court’s order quashing the defense’s attempt to subpoena Rogers, saying his mental health problems stemming from the attack made him incapable of testifying.

The state argues the trial court only determined Rogers “appear[ed] to be intentionally unavailable” to testify in court, but it did not find what from his testimony would be favorable to the defense. 

The defense wanted to question Rogers about his behavior the night of the stabbing and prior conduct and mental health issues, but the state wrote these factors “would not be material to a showing that Michell acted reasonably or that [Rogers] was the initial aggressor.”

Additionally, Rogers didn’t witness the stabbing because Mitchell approached him from behind, the brief states. Regardless, the state argues, Mitchell’s intent to defend others was already presented to the jury through other witnesses. 

The defense has argued in court filings and at trial that the conservator inserted himself into the case, including accusing him of working with the prosecution and denying access to the victim. 

The state had denied these claims, noting Robert Rogers was following his fiduciary duties as conservator when fighting the subpoena and other efforts. 

Acquittal and double jeopardy

 Another issue raised in the state’s brief is how the trial court violated the Mississippi Rules of Criminal Procedure by dismissing the indictment against Mitchell and entering an acquittal.

No rule of criminal procedure allows an indictment to be dismissed because a witness failed to appear, and acquittal isn’t the proper remedy under the rules, the state argues. Instead, the valid remedies for a discovery violation are continuance or mistrial, which would have needed to have happened before a jury was sworn in and double jeopardy was in place. 

In its alternative remedy, the state asks the Court of Appeals to reverse and remand the trial court’s decision and order a mistrial, which the state says would preserve its right to retry Mitchell. 

Former Mississippi Court of Appeals judge and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz called acquittal an unusual position for a trial court and an example of how Judge Smith of the Union County court acted in a way that other trial courts don’t tend to do. 

He said the state may be asking the Court of Appeals to clarify the law and find that the judge ruled improperly, instead of seeking retrial and running into double jeopardy. 

“(A)ny judges in the future who consider this issue can know clearly and [it’s] well stated by the court [that] you can’t just order an acquittal if a victim doesn’t show up,” he said. 

Crime victims’ rights

Rogers and his conservator are asking the Court of Appeals to allow them to file an amicus curiae brief for the court to consider additional information, including victim’s rights. 

A March 11 proposed amicus brief argues the trial judge’s refusal to submit the case to the jury stripped Rogers of his constitutionally-protected rights as a victim. As of Thursday, the brief has not been approved. 

Meg Garvin, executive director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute at Lewis & Clark College in Oregon, provided feedback to help craft the amicus brief. 

She said the Mississippi Constitution gives crime victims the right to be treated with fairness, dignity and respect, and just because those terms are broad, it doesn’t mean they are empty. 

Mitchell’s attorneys want the court to deny the amicus brief, citing a May 2023 Supreme Court order denying an emergency petition filed by the conservator to halt the trial court from filing a judgment of acquittal. In it, Justice Leslie King said the victim and conservator lack standing to contest the disposition of Mitchell’s case, or any charge. 

Garvin said this challenge highlights a misunderstanding about what victims’ rights are. Victims asking for their rights to be protected doesn’t make them a party. 

She said it is possible for someone to exercise another’s rights on their behalf, such as what happens for parents acting on behalf of their children or on behalf of someone who is mentally incapacitated, including someone under a conservatorship. 

If Mitchell’s case is upheld, it would be a sign that Mississippi victims’ rights aren’t meaningful or are being adequately considered, Garvin said. 

“The statement to the victim would be you actually don’t have rights, you are just a piece of evidence in a case against someone else,” she said.

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As the Mississippi Republican-led Legislature considers expanding Medicaid for the first time after a decade-long debate, Senate leaders have referenced other Southern states’ expansion plans as alternatives to full expansion. 

On Wednesday, the Senate Medicaid Committee passed the House Republican expansion bill with a strike-all and replaced it with its own plan, which Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, called “expansion light.” The Senate is expected to take the bill up for a floor vote Thursday, with a plan that’s nearly identical to Georgia’s. 

Problems with “Georgia Pathways”

Health care policy experts don’t think Georgia’s plan is worth emulating. The state’s plan, called “Georgia Pathways,” misses out on the increased federal match of 90% that the law grants to newly expanded states, and it also doesn’t qualify for the additional $690 million federal dollars that would make expansion free to Mississippi for four years.

And the plan, touted as a conservative alternative to what critics call “Obamacare,” has cost state taxpayers $26 million so far, with more than 90% of that going toward administrative and consulting costs, according to KFF Health News. Implementing work requirements is costly and labor intensive because it involves hiring more staff and processing monthly paperwork to confirm enrollees are employed. 

“Georgia’s plan has proven to be very profitable for large companies like Deloitte (the primary consultant for Georgia’s project) but has provided health care to almost no one who needs it,” said Joan Alker, Medicaid expert and executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “It’s been a terrible waste of taxpayer dollars so far.”

If the Senate plan were signed into law, Mississippi would fare the same – receiving its regular federal match of only 77% instead of 90% – and risk large administrative costs for enforcing a 120-hour-a-month work requirement and a provision that says recipients must be recertified four times a year.

Work requirements ‘costly’ to enforce

In theory, a work requirement isn’t controversial. A majority of Mississippi lawmakers in both chambers want to reserve Medicaid coverage for those who are working or exempt, with legislation that incentivizes employment in the state with the lowest labor participation rate. The problem, experts say, is that in practice, it can do more harm than good. 

Policing and enforcing the work requirement costs more than it would cost to insure the small population of unemployed people who would become eligible for Medicaid under traditional expansion, explained Morgan Henderson, principal data scientist at The Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County — a nonpartisan research group that conducted several studies detailing what Medicaid expansion would look like in Mississippi. 

“Medicaid work requirements are costly to implement,” Henderson said. “States have to develop new administrative systems which can cost millions, or tens of millions, of dollars. Additionally, employment reporting requirements can be confusing and burdensome for individuals, so people who are legitimately employed and income-eligible for Medicaid may be denied coverage – thus, hurting the exact individuals who are supposed to qualify for Medicaid with work requirements.”

In Georgia, only 3,500 people have signed up since the program began in July – despite the millions of dollars taxpayers have paid to run the program and officials’ previous estimate that roughly 25,000 people would sign up in the first year and 52,000 by the fifth year. 

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said in an interview in February that the Mississippi Senate plan likely wouldn’t be as strict as Georgia’s, calling their work requirement “onerous.” 

But the Senate plan is even stricter than Georgia’s, calling for at least 120 hours of work a month instead of the 80 hours required in Georgia. 

In Arkansas, a work requirement was briefly implemented in 2018 before it was overturned.

A study by the New England Journal of Medicine found Arkansas’ work requirement to be unsuccessful at increasing employment. The main consequence of the state’s work requirement was an increase in the number of uninsured persons compared to full expansion and “no significant changes” in employment associated with the policy, according to the study. 

In addition, “more than 95% of persons who were targeted by the policy already met the requirement or should have been exempt.”

What’s next?

The only expansion bill still alive in the Mississippi Legislature is House Bill 1725, authored by Speaker Jason White, R-West, and Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, which is now before the Senate. The bill, as passed by the House, has a provisional work requirement, but would expand Medicaid to 138% of the federal poverty level – even if a work requirement is not approved by federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 

That’s important because during the Biden administration, the federal government  has rescinded work requirement waivers previously granted under the Trump administration and has not approved new ones. 

But the Senate version is entirely contingent on the work requirement, calling for a minimum of 120 work hours a month and quarterly recertification. Eligibility also only goes up to 100% of the federal poverty level. 

If the Senate were to stand firm on the work requirement, expansion might not go into effect until well into 2025. That is, if a new administration takes office. 

A provision in North Carolina’s recent expansion bill could prove useful as Mississippi lawmakers debate the details of expanding Medicaid.

A North Carolina expansion bill passed in 2023 is a mostly-traditional expansion plan with a unique work requirement provision. Expansion originally passed without a work requirement, but included a provision that says if or when a federal administration that favors the concept takes office, the state will change Medicaid eligibility rules and adopt the work requirement. 

If Mississippi were to include this kind of language in its own bill, it could expand Medicaid in 2024 or at the start of 2025, instead of waiting well into a new presidential term.

In theory, work requirements make sense, Henderson said. But they haven’t produced the desired outcome of increasing the labor force participation rate in other states. That fact, coupled with the costly administrative burden of enforcing them and the unfortunate consequence of eligible enrollees losing coverage make the work requirement an unworthy pursuit, Henderson and Alker conclude. 

“In theory, it’s true that, under Medicaid expansion, individuals earning slightly more than 138% of the federal poverty level could have an incentive to reduce their earnings in order to qualify for Medicaid,” said Henderson. “However, there are reasons to believe that this will be rare.”

The three reasons Henderson gives are: “First, not all workers know their exact income as a fraction of the current federal poverty limit, which changes every year and is a function of household size. Second, not all workers can control their hours. Third, individuals earning just above 138% of the federal poverty level have access to generous subsidies through the insurance marketplace, which could reduce the incentive to reduce income to qualify for Medicaid.”

And in practice, Henderson said, “no studies I’m aware of have found evidence of Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions having adverse effects on employment outcomes.”

The Senate is expected to vote on House Bill 1725 on Thursday. While the bill only needs a three-fifths vote to pass the floor, it realistically needs a two-thirds majority from both chambers to show it has the potential to override a threatened veto from Republican Gov. Tate Reeves.

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The great-great-great grandson of Confederate icon J.Z. George wants to see his ancestor’s statue moved from the U.S. Capitol back to Mississippi.

Each day, hundreds visit the Capitol’s Statuary Hall to glimpse the two statues from each state. Mississippi is the only state represented strictly by Confederate leaders. They are George and Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy.

In recent decades, states such as Alabama and Florida have replaced statues of those who fought in the Civil War or supported secession with notable leaders or trailblazers. States pay for the statues, which represent deceased citizens “illustrious for their historic renown or for distinguished civic or military services such as each State may deem to be worthy of this national commemoration.”

Beyond Confederate figures, Ohio replaced a slave-supporting governor with inventor Thomas Edison. California replaced a little-known minister with former President Ronald Reagan. North Carolina replaced a white supremacist politician with evangelist Billy Graham.

Mississippi, however, has stood pat.

It is time that changed, said George’s ancestor, Charles Sims of New Braunfels, Texas, a combat veteran, Ole Miss graduate and founder of The Dream 2020. “Racial hatred or racism shouldn’t be honored.”

He would love to see Medgar Evers, a World War II veteran buried in Arlington National Cemetery, take the place of George, a Civil War veteran, he said. “I’d like to replace a soldier with a soldier.”

Medgar Evers fought in Normandy and later became part of the Red Ball Express, a convoy system that used Army trucks to haul food, gasoline, ammunition and other supplies to U.S. forces as they raced across France.

When Evers returned home, he and his brother and other Black soldiers tried to vote, only to be turned away by white men with guns. After that, he began battling in the civil rights movement and became the first field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP.

Sims knows all about fighting. He spent more than eight years in the Army, much of it in combat in Iraq.

Many of those in his lineage, like George, were slave owners. Three of his ancestors signed the Mississippi Articles of Secession, which called for the state to secede from the nation: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world.”

Two years after the Civil War ended, Reconstruction began, and so did a reign of terror against Black Mississippians and those who supported them.

George became known as the “Great Redeemer” for his role in returning white supremacy to power after Reconstruction ended. That work culminated in the 1890 Constitution, designed to disenfranchise Black Mississippians through poll taxes and constitutional quizzes.

“There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter,” future Gov, and U.S. Sen. James K. Vardaman declared, “Mississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n—– from politics.”

The changes worked. Within a decade, the number of Black registered voters fell from more than 130,000 to less than 1,300. 

Other Southern states followed Mississippi’s lead, barring Black voters in every way they could. Grandfather clauses. White primaries. Violence. Voter intimidation.

“We cannot erase the past, but neither should we be a prisoner of it, either,” Sims said. “J.Z. George was the architect of the Jim Crow laws. I am not proud of this. … I think the statue should be removed from the Capitol because we cannot honor racial hatred.”

He said family members may not agree on whether the statue should be removed from Statuary Hall, but all agree that if that happens, the statue should come home to the Cotesworth Plantation in Mississippi.

Leslie McLemore, who helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, said he would vote for civil rights pioneer Fannie Lou Hamer to take George’s place at Statuary Hall.

After 44 years as a sharecropper, she joined the movement and eventually captivated a nation with her story and her songs, he said. “She inspired a generation of people to get involved in the movement. To honor somebody like that is special.”

Sims said he once heard civil rights pioneer James Meredith, the first known Black American to attend the University of Mississippi, remark, “Mississippi is at the center of the universe, the center of the racial issue, the center of the poverty issue.”

Those words struck a chord with Sims. “I thought, ‘Wow, Mississippi could be the center of something.’”

Despite these days of division, Sims feels the winds of change.

“I feel it is important to change the narrative about Mississippi and show that we have the ability to reach across party and racial lines in search of conflict resolution,” he said. “This is to highlight that we have the power to sit down and talk to people about the things that divide us.”

The past can be overcome, he said, “once people stop shouting at each other and begin listening to each other.”

Some people believe there’s been so much hatred for so long that they can’t reach out to a Black family because “they’re not going to accept my hand in reconciliation,” he said. “Well, that’s how I’ve done it, and I’m not close to done.”

He has met with the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake, all victims of police violence. He also met with the niece of Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her bus seat and sparked the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.

“It’s been truly amazing,” Sims said. “If I could do this as the great grandson of Jim Crow, what is anybody else’s excuse?”

The truth is that people aren’t willing to do what it takes to move the nation forward, he said. “If we value reconciliation, we have to be willing to put the hard work in to achieve it. If we value the dream, we have to be willing to live it and pray about it fully, not just talk about it fully.”

In his “I Have a Dream” speech delivered to those gathered at the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”

When Sims heard those words, he said he felt they were aimed at him. “I think Dr. King sent me an invitation through history.”

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The only surviving Medicaid expansion bill in the Legislature passed the Senate Medicaid Committee Wednesday and is headed to the full Senate for a vote. 

But the proposal, as it passed the Senate committee, is not considered traditional “expansion” under the Affordable Care Act, and therefore would not qualify for the enhanced federal funding the law grants to newly-expanded states. It would leave the cost of the expanded coverage up to the state.

The Senate committee passed the House Republican bill with a strike-all, meaning it replaced the bill’s original language with its own plan, which Medicaid Committee Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, refers to as “expansion light.”

Blackwell estimated about 80,000 people would be eligible under this version of expansion, and half of that would apply. The House plan was expected to cover more than 200,000 people.

When a draft of the Senate’s bill was leaked on March 20, Blackwell stressed to Mississippi Today that he and Senate leaders were still tweaking parts of the legislation. However, the legislation that passed the committee is essentially the same as what was outlined in the leaked draft. 

The Senate proposal would:

• Cover working Mississippians up to 99% of the federal poverty level. For an individual, that would be an annual income up to $15,060. For a family of four, that would be an annual income up to $31,200.
• Not cover those making between 100% and 138% of the federal poverty threshold — not even through a private-care option. A plan that doesn’t cover people making up to 138% is not considered “expansion” under the Affordable Care Act, meaning Mississippi wouldn’t qualify for the 90% federal match rate that the Affordable Care Act grants to new expansion states, nor the additional, two-year 5% increase in match rate the federal government provides to newly-expanded states under pandemic relief spending passed by Congress. Instead, as was the case with Georgia, Mississippi would only get its regular federal Medicaid rate of about 77%.
• Leave the health insurance exchange, the online marketplace that offers federally subsidized plans to people who make between 100% and 138% of the federal poverty level, intact. The Senate plan, unlike Arkansas’ Medicaid expansion, would not provide extra subsidies from the state’s federal Medicaid money available from the ACA.
• Include a work requirement mandating at least 120 hours of employment a month in a position for which health insurance is not paid for by the employer. That’s more stringent than Georgia’s plan, which mandates 80 hours a month. There are several exemptions, such as for full-time students or parents who are the primary caregiver of a child under six years old.
• Go into effect 30 days after the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approves a waiver necessary for the work requirement. That’s unlikely to happen under the Biden administration, which has rescinded work requirements previously approved for other states during the Trump administration and has not approved new ones. If the federal government denies the waiver, Mississippi would have to wait until a new administration took office, or sue the Biden administration. Georgia remains in litigation with the federal government over the work requirement issue, and has suffered low enrollment and missed out on millions in federal funds by not fully expanding coverage.
• Require anyone who voluntarily dropped private insurance to wait 12 months before applying for Medicaid coverage.

Senate Democrats voiced several concerns about the administrative burden of the work requirement and the 120 hour a month minimum, which is even stricter than Georgia’s plan – currently the strictest expansion plan in the country. 

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, asked Blackwell about the enhanced match from the federal government.

“So the federal government paying our match for two years and 90% after the two years – we would not qualify for that?” Blount asked.

Blackwell said that is correct, and they would leave that money on the table.

Sen. John Horhn, D-Jackson, introduced two amendments: one to decrease the recertification requirements from four times a year to twice a year, and the other to reduce the work requirement hours from 120 hours a month to 80 hours a month. 

Both amendments were voted down by Republicans, who make up a majority of the committee’s membership. Despite their amendments getting shot down, the Democrats still voted in favor of the bill. Only three Republican senators in the committee voted against the plan. 

When asked about the administrative burden of enforcing the work requirement, Blackwell said he is not worried and believes the Division of Medicaid has enough employees for its implementation. 

But Georgia, the only state currently with a work requirement in its expansion plan, has spent $26 million taxpayer dollars to ensure a mere 3,500 people to date. More than 90% of that has gone to administrative and consulting costs. 

The bill is expected to be taken to a floor vote as early as Thursday, with a deadline of April 10. 

Since the Senate plan is drastically different than the House proposal – which is a mostly-traditional expansion plan insuring those who make up to 138% of the federal poverty level and would go into effect whether or not the federal government approves a work requirement waiver – a final version will likely be hammered out later in the session in a conference committee.

Any final plan would realistically need a two-thirds majority from both chambers to show it has the potential to override a potential veto from Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who has privately told lawmakers he plans to veto any Medicaid expansion bill.

Reeves on Tuesday night hosted around 20 state senators at the Governor’s Mansion in downtown Jackson where he, again, reiterated his opposition to any form of Medicaid expansion, according to multiple people familiar with the situation. 

At the Tuesday night event, Reeves said he would veto the Senate’s expansion plan if it reached his desk, though he reportedly said he approved the Senate’s work requirement provisions. 

Shortly after the committee passed the expansion legislation, Reeves posted on social media that the Senate plan is “still bad policy” and he will oppose it.

“And so I will continue to do what I told the voters I would do – fight Obamacare Medicaid Expansion with every ounce of my being,” Reeves said.  

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The secretary of state’s office and two advocacy groups on Tuesday asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state Republican and Libertarian parties seeking to limit the number of  mail-in absentee ballots during the upcoming presidential and congressional election.  

The Mississippi Alliance for Retired Americans and Vet Voice Foundation, two groups who intervened in the suit, and Secretary of State Michael Watson’s office argued in separate briefings that the federal litigation should be dismissed because the political parties lack legal standing to bring the suit.

“The Mississippi Statute does not harm the plaintiff individuals or political parties in any way,” Special Assistant Attorney General Rex Shannon III wrote on behalf of Watson’s office. “It does not conflict with laws that set the election day for federal offices. And it does not impair the plaintiffs’ rights to vote or to stand for office under the First and/or Fourteenth Amendments.” 

The litigation marks a peculiar scenario where the national and state Republican parties have filed suit over a law that passed a GOP-dominated Legislature and was signed into law by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves. 

Watson, a Republican, is the state’s chief elections administrator and is now tasked with fighting his own political party in court using attorneys from Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office.

The statute in question is a 2020 law requiring local election workers to count mail-in absentee ballots for up to five days after the election date. The Mississippi law currently permits election workers to count mail-in votes only if the ballots were postmarked by the election date.

Legislative leaders at the time pushed for the law because election officials worried they would have an influx of mail-in ballots to process during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The national and state GOP and the state Libertarian Party argue that the federal judge presiding over the suit should bar election workers from counting mail-in absentee ballots after Election Day because only Congress gets to determine the procedures for federal elections. 

To support the Republican Party’s argument, Mississippi GOP Chairman Frank Bordeaux wrote in a signed declaration that the statute dilutes the weight of ballots cast on Election Day and harms conservative candidates running for office. 

“Mississippi’s mail-in deadline forces the MS GOP to divert resources and spend money on absentee-specific programs and post-election activities,” Bordeaux wrote. “The mail-in deadline effectively forces the MS GOP to run Election Day activities for an additional week after the national Election Day has passed.” 

The Democratic National Committee, Disability Rights Mississippi and the League of Women Voters of Mississippi attempted to intervene in the litigation, but U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. denied their request. 

Instead, the DNC and the two advocacy organizations filed a “ friend-of-the-court” brief also arguing the suit should be dismissed because the plaintiffs do not have legal standing. 

U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. ordered all of the parties to file all responses to the pending motions by April 9 and file responses to the replies by April 16. 

While the litigation is pending, the Republican-majority state Senate passed a bill to abolish the five-day window for processing the absentee ballots after Election Day, but it has not yet passed the GOP-controlled House. Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England, the author of the bill, said the legislation was not a response to the federal litigation.

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Mississippi Today is pleased to announce Michael Guidry as managing editor.

Guidry, who joined the Mississippi Today staff in February 2024, manages the newsroom’s day-to-day reporting and plans broader editorial strategy.

He previously served as managing editor at Mississippi Public Broadcasting, where he developed skills in audio storytelling as a producer, writer and editor. 

“Michael is a perfect fit for what we’re building at Mississippi Today,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief. “He’s a proven newsroom leader, and he knows Mississippi. He also brings us a lot of digital and audio skills that readers can expect to see more of pretty quickly.”

A native of Destrehan, Louisiana, Guidry moved to Mississippi to attend Millsaps College, where he earned a dual Bachelor of Arts in History and Theatre. After graduating, he worked as a public school teacher for more than a decade.

While at MPB, Guidry helped lead a team that received recognitions from the Radio Television Digital News Association, the Mississippi Association of Broadcasters and the Public Media Journalists Association.

MPB’s special feature on Confederate Memorial Day – which he co-produced and co-narrated – received the 2023 Region 9 Edward R Murrow Award for Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Guidry continues to host MPB’s weekly politics show @Issue.

“As someone who spent years in a space adjacent to Mississippi Today, it became evident the newsroom was quickly becoming a leader in local, nonprofit news,” Guidry said. “I could not be more excited to join a publication dedicated to elevating the voices of Mississippians while holding power to account.”

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Mississippi Today is pleased to announce Geoff Pender as Politics and Government Editor.

Pender, who first joined the Mississippi Today staff as senior political reporter in May 2020, will oversee the day-to-day reporting of Mississippi Today’s politics team.

He brings more than 30 years of experience covering Mississippi politics to the new role.

“If you follow Mississippi politics, you know Geoff Pender,” said Adam Ganucheau, Mississippi Today’s editor-in-chief. “He’s been a vital member of our politics team since 2020, and we couldn’t be more excited for him to now lead it. He’s been a mentor to so many of our reporters, and he’s led several impactful investigations for us. Readers can expect more of that from him in this new job— and if you’re wondering, you’ll also continue to see plenty of his analysis of the state’s biggest stories.”

Before joining Mississippi Today, Pender was political and investigative editor at the Clarion Ledger, where he also penned a popular political column. He previously served as an investigative reporter and political editor at the Sun Herald, where he was a member of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team for Hurricane Katrina coverage. 

A native of Florence, Pender is a journalism graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi and has received numerous awards throughout his career for reporting, columns and freedom of information efforts.

“I truly appreciate this opportunity and appreciate being able to continue working with the great team of journalists at Mississippi Today providing in-depth news coverage at such a crucial time for the state,” Pender said.

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Gov. Tate Reeves’ nominations for the immensely powerful governing board of Mississippi’s public universities do not include a graduate of the state’s historically Black colleges and universities. 

The 12-member Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees will be left with just one alumnus of an HBCU in Mississippi if the Senate approves Reeves’ nominations. Currently, the board has two. 

Also not represented by Reeves’ picks or on the IHL board is Mississippi University for Women, which recently fended off a surprise Senate bill earlier this legislative session to merge it with Mississippi State University. 

A spokesperson for Reeves’ office did not return inquiries from Mississippi Today about how the governor identified the four nominees and if he considered any candidates who had graduated from an HBCU in Mississippi. 

“I’d like to thank the outgoing IHL board members for their years of distinguished public service and many contributions to our state,” Reeves said in a press release. “I wish them all the best in their future endeavors.” 

Reeves’ nominations will seek to fill vacancies left by four of former Gov. Phil Bryant’s IHL appointees who will roll off the board in May. Those include Dr. Alfred McNair, a gastroenterologist who graduated from Tougaloo College. Dr. Steven Cunningham, a radiologist who attended Jackson State University, will be the board’s sole HBCU alum. 

The nominations are already drawing criticism from some lawmakers in the Senate for not equitably representing the state of Mississippi. And the stakes could be high: Lawmakers this session have proposed measures to close three universities or to study efficiency in the state’s university system. 

“Time and time again, the governor speaks about being a governor for all of Mississippi,” said Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons, a Democrat from Greenville and a graduate of Jackson State. “These recent appointments show that he is not holding true to the words that he himself speaks.” 

Reeves’ picks may not face significant pushback as the last time the Senate rejected a governor’s nomination for the IHL board was in 1996. 

Appointments to the IHL board come with significant responsibility and power over Mississippi’s public university system. The trustees oversee eight universities that educate more than 86,000 students and support almost as many jobs, according to an economic impact study. 

But historically, IHL has not not always used that power to the benefit of all eight institutions. The board was subject to a long-running lawsuit, settled in 2002, that alleged it had violated the 14th Amendment by not providing adequate funds to Mississippi’s three HBCUs. 

And just last fall, the Biden administration calculated the state of Mississippi owes Alcorn State University more than $250 million over the last 30 years alone. As an 1890 land-grant institution, Alcorn State is supposed to receive equitable funds to the state’s other agriculture college, Mississippi State University. 

Reeves is not the first governor to face criticism for largely appointing graduates of the state’s predominantly white institutions. His appointments hew to a pattern set by his predecessors: IHL appointees traditionally do not have higher education experience and are usually accomplished, and well-connected, attorneys, doctors and business owners. 

They are also often campaign donors. Reeves’ four nominations, whose names and biographies were announced in a press release Tuesday, are no exception and include: 

• Donald Clark, a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Mississippi School of Law, is an attorney at Butler Snow and the law firm’s former chairman. 
• The founding partner of Heidelberg, Steinberger, Burrow & Armer, James “Jimmy” Heidelberg previously sat on the Mississippi Oil and Gas Board and attended the same institutions as Clark. 
• Charles “Charlie” Stephenson serves as the president of the Mississippi State Bulldog Club Board of Directors and graduated from Mississippi State University. 
• Jerry Griffith, who served on the Mississippi Gaming Commission, attended Delta State University. 

Mississippi Today was able to confirm through a database the news organization created last year that at least two of Reeves’ nominations — Clark, Heidelberg and Stephenson — are campaign donors to the governor. Calls to those three nominees were not returned by press time. 

Griffith told Mississippi Today he was on deadline for some articles and could not speak substantively about his nomination until next week but added that “it’s an honor to be appointed by the governor.”

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With both the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments in full swing, it feels like the women are stealing the show. Caitlin Clark, Juju Watson and Mississippi’s own Madison Booker are quickly becoming household names nationwide. The Cleveland boys weigh in from Breckenridge, where it won’t stop snowing.

Stream all episodes here.

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