As the World Cup moves to the Knockout Rounds, we take a look at the most exciting games so far and pontificate on the USA’s chances. Plus, Scottie Scheffler finishes second (again) and Rick picks his favorite Mississippi courses.
Stream all episodes here.
As the first day of school inches closer, Mississippi education officials are making it easier for K-12 teachers to access the money the state gives teachers to set up their classrooms.
The Education Enhancement Fund, or EEF, procurement card program, which was established in 2012, gives every teacher $748 — around $25 million in total — to buy supplies for their classrooms.
However, a report released last year by State Auditor Shad White’s office concluded that $17.8 million of that money is locked when “teachers need it most” because the cards weren’t activated for districts until Aug. 1, as required by state law. That meant teachers, in some cases, had to dip into their own pockets to purchase the supplies or start the year without things they needed.
This year, the education agency is making the money available to districts on July 15 and shifting to a digital wallet platform instead of dispersing physical cards for payments.
The cards had limitations, including delays in replacement and dispute resolution and placed a significant administrative load on state Education Department and district staff, State Superintendent Lance Evans said in a letter about the program that he sent White in June.
The new platform, ClassWallet, is built specifically for classroom supply funds and should make it easier for teachers to capture receipts, resolve any issues and directly pay vendors, he said.
The Education Department’s transition to a digital wallet platform for teachers to access EEF classroom supply funds is a response to district input, said Jean Cook, a spokesperson for the education department. “The agency convened a panel of school district business managers and EEF card administrators from across the state, and their input informed the selection of the new digital wallet platform.”
Cook said the agency typically releases funds to districts in July, with the exception of the past two years because of vendor changes. But until 2022, the cards weren’t activated for districts until Sept. 1.
Legislation passed that year moved the activation date up to Aug. 1 to help teachers access the money earlier.
However, Hannah Bagwell, a fifth grade math and science teacher at Florence Elementary in Rankin County, said in her 13 years of teaching, she has typically gotten her procurement card after school has started.
That meant adding pens, pencils and crayons to her shopping cart during summer grocery store trips and reusing classroom decorations each year. She estimates she spent a couple of hundred dollars a year to make her classroom feel welcoming for her new students.
After she got her EEF card in past years, Bagwell would buy dry erase markers and copy paper. But she still had to spend her own money on several items for her classroom.
Keyana Hawthorne, an 11th grade English teacher at Murrah High in Jackson, said she’s spent up to $1,000 of her own money preparing her classroom for students because of how late the EEF card has been activated in years past.
She said she’s grateful state officials are recognizing and trying to fix the gap, but she’s skeptical about increasing limitations on the money and the program’s rollout.
Making the money available earlier is good in theory, but teachers may not have immediate access to it, Hawthorne said. “Just because the funds open on July 15 doesn’t guarantee my district is going to give me the funds then.”
Education agency officials told district business managers that the digital accounts must be activated between July 15 and Aug. 1, and that districts should ensure teachers attend a virtual training session this month on how to use the program.
“I’m praying it works and that every district does what they’re supposed to do,” Hawthorne said.
Scott Berry, the winningest baseball coach in Southern Miss baseball history, has been selected for induction into the American Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame.
Ceremonies will be held at the annual ABCA Convention on Jan. 8 in Chicago.
Berry spent 23 years at Southern Miss, including the last 14 seasons as head coach. He produced 528 victories, nine NCAA Tournament appearances, two NCAA Super Regional berths and ended his career leading USM to seven straight 40-win seasons.
That streak, now extended to 10 straight seasons under Christian Ostrander, is the nation’s longest.
Berry won four conference Coach of the Year honors and coached four Boo Ferriss Trophy winners. Before joining Corky Palmer’s Southern Miss staff, Berry was the Meridian Community College head coach for four seasons. Meridian won 185 games, while losing only 58 and twice advanced to the Junior College World Series.
Among the Mississippi coaches named to the ABCA Hall of Fame are Boo Ferriss, Dudy Noble, Rob Polk, Stanley Robrinson, Bob Braddy, Mike Kinnison, Tom Swayze, Jerry Boatner and Hill Denson.
OXFORD – After a wave of immigration enforcement arrests in and around Oxford in the first two weeks of June, immigrant communities faced a void of information from authorities as they confronted the emergencies and disruptions to lives, families and businesses caused by the detentions.
The lack of transparency from authorities is “the first symptom of a huge problem,” said Mauricio Calvo, president of Latino Memphis, an organization that supports immigrant families with information and resources. Often when detentions occur, he said, “we don’t know how many, we don’t know who, we don’t know where they are – it could be a bunch of different detention centers.”
Witnesses in Oxford filmed and photographed ICE agents in unmarked SUVs arresting predominantly Latino commuters at intersections and at traffic stops. A Memphis, Tennessee-based grassroots network, Vecindarios901, found that at least 24 people were detained. Many were held briefly at Madison County Detention Center in central Mississippi, then quickly transferred to larger Immigration and Custom Enforcement detention facilities in Louisiana and Alabama, including a privately run prison in Jena, Louisiana, with a documented history of torture and abuse.
For many people trying to locate friends and family who were detained, Vecindarios901 was a critical line of information. The network primarily responds to arrests in and around Memphis, where immigrant communities have been main targets of the Memphis Safe Task Force, a joint operation by federal agencies, including ICE and the National Guard, in collaboration with local authorities. (President Donald Trump’s September 2025 memorandum established the force to “end street and violent crime,” but the federal agents have been accused of repeated violence and harassment.)
More than an hour’s drive southeast of Memphis, Oxford has not been a regular target of federal immigration authorities, but Vecindarios901 also monitors the area due to its proximity to its home base. Dispatchers said the arrests were the largest scale enforcement operation they have recorded near Oxford since September.
Bailey Martin Holloway, spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, wrote that since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – which includes ICE – was the lead agency in the Oxford operation, “any information would need to be released by them.”
ICE, the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department and the Madison County Sheriff’s Department did not respond to questions about the number of people detained or where they were taken. Oxford Police Department spokesperson Breck Jones said city police were not involved in the operations and received no information about the arrests. Oxford Mayor Robyn Tannehill did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Nena Garza, who uses the alias that translates to “Dear Heron” to avoid retribution from authorities for her work, is one of Vecindarios901’s trained searchers. They have become experts at using a variety of online resources to help families in the region locate relatives in detention. The tools for finding detainees exist, Nena Garza said, but “not many people know how to find them or navigate them.”
She and other searchers glean information by comparing information from county detention dockets, a privately run platform designed for families to transfer money to prisoners, ICE’s detainee locator, and updates from local law enforcement on the Mobile Patrol App.
However, the sheer number of immigration detentions in the region make it impossible for the searchers to address every case. “There are too many,” Nena Garza said. “If I leave the office and I have my laptop or my iPad, I’m always looking for people, checking where they might be.”
At a roadside restaurant in the outskirts of Oxford, the owner’s husband said he has been juggling his full-time construction job with managing the restaurant since his wife, a Honduran citizen, was detained in Memphis in early June. Then, ICE came to Oxford and arrested the son of one of the restaurant’s employees.
“They’ve taken so many of my friends and acquaintances, with the raids and the traffic stops that they put up,” said the owner’s husband, who asked not to be identified to avoid being targeted by immigration authorities. “We’re left mourning because many of the people we knew aren’t here anymore.”
He said his wife has lived in the U.S. for 16 years, raised a family here, runs two businesses and was close to getting her green card. Fulfilling her responsibilities has been a challenge for him and the restaurant’s employees, especially as they worry about what loved ones are facing in detention centers. He said authorities have not given his wife her prescribed medication, and she keeps losing weight.
“I’m afraid they’re going to let her die,” he said. “It destroys my heart.”
Nena Garza said that, beyond disappearances, the detentions create a host of emergencies that support networks scramble to address – including finding care for children left without guardians, helping families whose principal earner has been detained pay rent and bills, and organizing rides to school or appointments when families are left without cars or afraid to leave their homes. Recovering vehicles that are abandoned then towed after their drivers are detained can cost relatives hundreds to thousands of dollars. But the principal harm, she says, is the emotional trauma.
“The community is damaged and in pain because of this,” she said. “The government used force and its authority to terrorize the community.”
Organizations supporting immigrant communities are bracing for a possible increase in immigration enforcement operations after Wednesday, when state legislation goes into effect requiring all Mississippi counties to sign 287(g) cooperation agreements with ICE. As of June, 24 of Mississippi’s 82 counties have signed such agreements, as well as several municipalities, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Public Safety.
According to publicly available ICE data, around 300 immigration arrests occurred monthly in Mississippi in late 2025 and early 2026, an increase from roughly 200 per month throughout most of 2025. Paula Merchant, who directs a Jackson-based nonprofit that supports immigrant families, said in Mississippi an increase in detentions of commuters on highways, city streets and at gas stations was visible starting in November. Mississippi Today reported on this surge in arrests, which occurred around the same time DHS launched an immigration enforcement operation targeting southern Louisiana and Mississippi.
According to ICE’s Strategic Plan, detentions target “individuals who present a threat to national security, public safety or the integrity of the U.S. immigration system.” However, the vast majority of people arrested by ICE have no criminal convictions, according to the American Immigration Council. Furthermore, the unprecedented speed of policy changes and long-standing interpretations of immigration law under the second Trump administration – including re-detention policies and terminations of Temporary Protected Status – mean that many people currently being detained were complying with immigration procedures until “the rules changed under them anyway,” according to Calvo.
Nena Garza lived through mass-immigration raids at Arkansas chicken plants and Memphis’ service industry in the late 1990s, but she said the targeting of immigrants under the second Trump administration is the “most terrible” she has experienced.
“The community is damaged and in pain because of this situation. We’re talking about the government using force and its authority to terrorize the community,” she said. “You go to bed with your heart crushed by everything you’ve seen during the day.”
But she also said that in 30 years working to support immigrant communities, she has never seen so many people mobilize to respond to the detentions, their ramifications and other anti-immigrant policies. “As a community, we have to be strong, we have to protect ourselves,” she said.
Georgie Pease joined Mississippi Today for a 10-week fellowship through the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She reported from Oxford and Memphis for this story.
The state agency that oversees court operations in Mississippi has agreed to continue providing attorneys with case file access while an impending change in state law threatens youth court functions more broadly.
The Office of the State Public Defender requested a temporary restraining order last week to curb what it predicted would be catastrophic results from the sunsetting of a crucial law dealing with access to youth court information. The law is set to repeal Wednesday.
But there was a disagreement about whether the Administrative Office of the Courts, the agency that the public defenders sued, had the power to prevent the lapse in access.
READ MORE: Mississippi youth court law puts families’ rights at risk, public defender lawsuit says
At issue is a state statute that places blanket confidentiality on youth courts across the state. The law that provides exceptions to that secrecy – which allow judicial officers, the child protection agency, providers and lawyers to communicate information – is set to repeal Wednesday. Without the exceptions, the laws left in place make it a misdemeanor to share any records involving children with any party.
Had a youth court reform bill introduced and negotiated during the past legislative session passed, this legal conundrum could have been avoided. But on a passage deadline day, the House adjourned before taking up the bill.
Defense lawyers contend that the law change will threaten their ability to access records that allow them to defend their clients, such as parents who have had their children removed by Child Protection Services. In particular, they were concerned the state court administrative agency might interpret the law change to mean that it could no longer provide credentials to lawyers to log in to the youth court database and review case files.
The Administrative Office of the Courts confirmed Friday that it would continue to follow court orders providing access following the repealer. But the office argued in court that it was unclear if it would still be receiving those orders from judges considering the law change.
State officials are still hopeful that Gov. Tate Reeves will call a special legislative session, formally requested by the public defender’s office and the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services, to rectify the problem.
The public defender’s office alleged in a federal civil rights complaint that Mississippi’s youth court law already results in unconstitutional outcomes. The impending law change, it claims, would only worsen the violations of due process rights that parents and children have been experiencing.
“The draconian policies and practices relating to confidentiality result in the unnecessary separation of families and the unnecessary detention of children,” states the lawsuit filed last week.
Youth courts in Mississippi’s 82 counties are required to house court filings in a statewide electronic database controlled by the Administrative Office of the Courts. There are various ways court officers, lawyers and agency workers gain permission to access the system. The state office is often responsible for providing the login credentials.
In many instances, and based on its interpretation of state law, the office will only provide the credentials under a youth court judge’s order.
During a five-hour hearing Friday, counsel for the public defender’s office and the Administrative Office of the Courts went back and forth, much of the time focused on the convoluted electronic case management and record retrieval process within youth courts. This hearing only pertained to the immediate issue of the repealer.
Elizabeth Rossi, a lawyer with the D.C.-based legal nonprofit Civil Rights Corps, argued that the Administrative Office of the Courts is the entity that “holds the key” for all youth court records. Civil Rights Corps, along with a similar organization called Public Justice, are representing the public defender’s office in its complaint.
Anna Morris, director of civil litigation for the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office representing the Administrative Office of the Courts, argued instead that the agency is akin to a custodian of a filing cabinet and does not have the authority to grant access to its contents.
With the exceptions to confidentiality set to lapse Wednesday, Morris said the office cannot guarantee that judges will continue ordering credentials to attorneys or even that courts will keep entering filings into the electronic database.
But Morris said the state office will continue to follow judges’ orders to provide access. U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate and the parties signed an agreed order Monday confirming this position and continuing the case until July 15.
The public defenders’ lawsuit ultimately goes a step further, arguing that access issues could be prevented more broadly if a court orders the Administrative Office of the Courts to provide youth court records access to all attorneys, regardless of a court order.
Mukta Joshi is an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today. She is spending a year as a New York Times Local Investigations fellow examining immigration and criminal justice issues. She can be reached at mukta.joshi@nytimes.com.
As federal courts face a flood of petitions filed by immigrants pleading to be released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, judges around the country have been improvising measures to deal with the overwhelming caseload.
Not in Mississippi.
U.S. District Court Judge David Bramlette III, who is assigned to handle all habeas corpus petitions filed by immigrant detainees in the state, has not decided a case on its merits since at least October, federal court dockets show.
Dozens of people who filed habeas corpus petitions have waited months to have their motions decided. Some of them have been held in Mississippi for a year or longer.
Judge Bramlette’s district encompasses Adams County, home to one of the largest ICE detention centers in the nation. In the past eight months, more than 570 immigrant detainees have filed habeas corpus petitions in his court in the Southern District of Mississippi, data collected by the nonprofit Habeas Dockets shows.
Many detainees who filed petitions have since been deported, and Judge Bramlette has dismissed about 18 on procedural grounds. But the others have remained undecided, allowing hundreds of detainees to remain in prison-like conditions without any decision about the constitutionality of their detention.
Last summer, the Trump administration began detaining immigrants who previously had moved freely around the country while they awaited the outcome of their immigration cases. Habeas corpus petitions became one of the only options for these immigrants to seek release.
Until July 2025, only those apprehended at the border would be detained until their asylum claims were decided. Most people who had lived in the United States for many years would have been allowed to argue for their release on bond if they had been arrested by ICE.
Habeas corpus allows petitioners to challenge their detention and argue that the government does not have a legal basis to detain them. Many detainees held by ICE have been arguing that they are at least entitled to bond hearings. Others argue that being held without cause beyond six months amounts to indefinite detention, which would violate the Constitution.
Alexi Canas, a native of El Salvador and a father of eight, had been living in Maryland for 30 years when ICE arrested him in March 2025. An immigration judge offered him protection from deportation, but after spending about seven months in detention, he filed a habeas petition through a lawyer in October. The petition asked the judge to set bond so Canas could be released while he waited for his immigration case to be finally decided. Records show that he has now spent more than a year in Natchez, in the Adams County Correctional Center.
An Afghan detainee, Azizurahman Karokhi, wrote out a petition by hand in December saying he remained in custody more than seven months after a judge ordered his deportation. ICE agents told him “the ball is in your country’s court,” because the government of Afghanistan had failed to issue a transportation letter, according to the habeas petition, which Karokhi filed without a lawyer.
Canas and Karokhi’s habeas corpus petitions are two of more than 57,000 that have been filed across the nation. Had ICE placed them in a detention center outside of Mississippi, a judge might have ruled on their petitions, and potentially granted them bond to get out.
Immigration lawyers and civil rights organizations in Mississippi have been pushing Judge Bramlette — who has closed fewer than 3 percent of habeas cases — to break the standstill in his court. In March, they sent a letter to the chief judge of Mississippi’s Southern District court proposing solutions by referring to steps taken by courts in other states.
D. Korbin Felder, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which endorsed the letter, said the judge had not responded.
On Friday, the federal court issued an order redistributing its case assignment among its judges, after a senior judge retired. Despite the reassignment, however, 100 percent of the cases in the court’s western division remain assigned to Bramlette.
“A new case assignment order was an opportunity to distribute the workload amongst multiple judges to get quicker resolutions,” Felder said, “but the Southern District of Mississippi continues to be an outlier and move without any urgency despite people’s constitutional rights being at stake.”
Bramlette did not respond to a request for comment.
Aidar Nafikov, a Russian asylum seeker who filed a habeas petition in April, has been in Adams County for more than 19 months. His wife, Liudmila, said the situation had left her family feeling “exhausted, heartbroken and desperate.”
“My husband has missed birthdays, holidays, school events and countless important moments in our children’s lives that can never be recovered,” she said.
Some federal courts across the country, including those serving parts of Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska, have decided more than half of the petitions that have come before them since October. Most other courts have decided a third to half of their cases. On average, federal courts have decided about a quarter of all habeas cases, the Habeas Dockets database shows.
In Georgia, one federal judge issued a standing order for all habeas petitions that follow a certain factual pattern, and empowered magistrates under him to grant relief in response to the “administrative judicial emergency” caused by the influx of petitions. As of June 29, that court district had decided more than a third of its habeas cases.
In the middle district of Louisiana, the chief judge appointed a public defender to assist detainees who were filing without a lawyer, and expanded the pool of judges who could handle habeas petitions. That court has decided about 15 percent of the habeas cases before it.
The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is one of two appellate courts that have upheld Trump’s mandatory detention policy. It covers Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana. In February, Gov. Jeff Landry of Louisiana started pushing to move a detention center away from the state’s middle district jurisdiction, criticizing “liberal judges” there for releasing immigrant detainees by granting their habeas petitions. Two months later, that court prohibited the government from transferring detainees out of its jurisdiction while their cases were pending.
The impasse in Bramlette’s court has left detainees wondering if they were intentionally transferred to Mississippi to prevent their cases from moving forward.
When a detainee is moved, they must refile their habeas petition in the local federal courthouse, a process that can quickly become costly. Maria Celeste, whose fiancé was transferred from a Louisiana facility to Adams County, said her fiancé’s lawyers advised against refiling his petition in Mississippi because it would have been “an unnecessary expense.”
Brandon Riches, an immigration attorney based in Ocean Springs who also signed the letter, said he had requested dismissal of many of his clients’ habeas petitions because they waited so long for a judgment that they were deported.
And some are being held in Adams long after they were ordered deported, trapped in bureaucratic purgatory. Yuk Chon Kwong, a detainee who has been in a high-security unit at Adams for more than a year, said he had been begging to be sent back to Hong Kong, where he is originally from. His mother brought him to the United States in 1970 when he was 12. He was ordered deported in 2010, but Hong Kong refused to accept him.
He said it seemed no one could give him answers. “You ask them anything, they say, ‘We don’t know, but we have the right to hold you here,’” Kwong said. “Over here, they break me mentally.”
Editor’s note: The views expressed in this article are solely the opinion of the author and do not reflect the official views, policies or positions of Long Beach School District or its Board of Education. Mississippi Today Ideas is a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share their ideas about our state’s past, present and future. Opinions expressed in guest essays are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Mississippi Today. You can read more about the section here.
There is an important difference between passive screen time and purposeful instructional technology, or virtual learning, that is getting lost within the current debate about tech in schools. As educators, we absolutely support thoughtful limits on student screen use, especially for younger learners.
At the same time, we must be careful not to adopt an all-or-nothing mindset that removes effective tools from teachers’ hands.
Many purposeful instructional technology programs, like i-Ready, were never intended to replace classroom instruction or the expertise of teachers.
In our district, the Long Beach School District, purposeful instructional technology is used as a valuable resource, a tool that supports instruction, helps monitor student progress and provides educators with meaningful data to better meet students’ needs. It does not dictate the instructional day, nor should it.
When used responsibly and within recommended timeframes, personalized instructional tools can strengthen teaching and help educators target interventions more effectively. Many purposeful instructional technology programs recommend approximately 45 minutes of instructional use per week, not hours of daily independent screen engagement. That distinction matters and it leaves ample time for classroom instruction.
As a society, we are often quick to react in extremes. While concerns about excessive or unproductive screen time are valid, we should avoid “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” The conversation should not be about eliminating technology altogether, but about using it intentionally, in balance with strong Tier I instruction, teacher-led learning, collaboration and meaningful classroom experiences.
Our responsibility as educators is to use every available resource wisely and thoughtfully in service of student learning. Technology should support great teaching — not replace it — and when implemented with fidelity and balance, it can be a valuable part of helping students grow.
Hence, part of our district’s success has come from being intentional about how we use instructional tools. As the No. 1 school district in Mississippi, we have leveraged data from purposeful instructional technology to better identify student needs, personalize support and monitor growth over time.
We have seen tremendous results. Over the past four years, our students have been consistent in growth for both reading and math, showing proficiency across subjects. Students we saw struggling in the classroom, previously multiple grades behind across subjects, are now catching up to their peers.
Used appropriately and in balance with strong classroom teachers, purposeful instructional technology, or virtual learning, has been an invaluable resource for our educators and students, and it is one we plan to continue to use as part of sustaining our success.
Kelleigh Reynolds Broussard serves as assistant superintendent of the Long Beach School District, Mississippi’s No. 1 rated school district, where she provides leadership for curriculum and instruction, execution of strategic planning goals, accountability, professional development, special education, early childhood education, alternative education, dropout prevention, educator recruitment/retention and instructional improvement initiatives. Long Beach has, earned the 2025 National ESEA Distinguished School Award and achieved A ratings across all schools through the implementation of innovative systems focused on continuous improvement and student achievement. She is the recipient of the 2026 Mississippi Association of Colleges forTeachers excellence award and William Carey University outstanding administrator of the year.
Mississippi Today is pleased to welcome one intern and two investigative reporting fellows for the summer.
Georgie Pease is one of Mississippi Today’s two new fellows and will be working with reporter Jerry Mitchell and the justice team for 10 weeks. Pease is from Oakland, California, and is pursuing her master’s degree in journalism at the University of California Berkeley.
Ana Claudia Boino Amendoeira will be working alongside Pease and the justice team for 12 weeks. Amendoeira is a native of Portugal and graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.
Amendoeira previously reported on a wrongful conviction case and residential psychiatric facilities for children, while Pease has written about immigration and environmental issues.
“With Georgie and Claudia, Mississippi Today has snagged two of the brightest lights to lead journalism into its next chapter,” said Debbie Skipper, editor of the justice team and special projects. “Inquisitive, passionate, thorough and fair, they will help us explore the state’s criminal justice system and the many weaknesses that have left people unfairly arrested and jailed and crimes unsolved. We are excited for them to bring their investigative skills into our thriving nonprofit newsroom.”
Mississippi Today is also pleased to welcome video intern Ella Jane Simmons, a Jackson native who is working with the newsroom’s growing video team.
Simmons graduated from the University of Mississippi in May 2025 and is pursuing a master’s degree at New York University in journalism through the News and Documentary program. She produced both short- and long-form video stories focused on human interest and environmental issues.
“Ella Jane brings immense technical expertise and an excellent eye for what makes compelling visual stories,” said Richard Lake, Mississippi Today’s video editor. “We hope our audience is as excited about what she will create as we are.”
Mississippi Today staff gives a rundown of the political stumping at the Neshoba County Fair last week. Did anyone make any news? Did we mention it was hot?
WEST POINT – For her birthday Monday, Tameshia Shelton got the present she’s been wishing for every day for the last 11 years: freedom from prison.
Her four children, mother and other family members blew party blowers, handed her a teddy bear and hugged her as she emerged from the Clay County Detention Center Monday afternoon. “I felt numb before,” she said, “but now it feels real.”
On Monday, she was freed on a $50,000 bond with the help of the Mississippi Fund Collective. The moment marks her first freedom since a jury convicted her of murder in the 2009 shooting death of her sister’s 21-year-old boyfriend, Danelle Young.
Shelton’s lawyers are asking Circuit Judge James T. Kitchens to dismiss the indictment. If he grants the request, her case would mark the seventh exoneration in the same judicial district — a state record.
After her release Monday, she celebrated her freedom and her 48th birthday with Popeye’s chicken, hot sauce and white bread.
“Eleven years too late, Ms. Shelton is coming home,” said one of her current lawyers, Sandra Levick of the Mississippi Innocence Project. “We appreciate everyone who made this day possible, but we will not truly celebrate until the case is finally over. That day should come soon.”
Earlier in June, the Mississippi Supreme Court refused to interfere with the December decision by the state Court of Appeals ordering a new trial for Shelton. The appeals court held that prosecutors failed to prove Shelton was guilty of murder “beyond a reasonable doubt” when she stood trial in 2015 for Young’s death.
The justices’ decision came days after Mississippi Today published its four-year investigation that found that Shelton has remained behind bars, even though much of the evidence in Young’s 2009 death suggested he killed himself — including an apparent suicide note never presented to the jury.
Shelton’s trial lawyer, Rod Ray, failed to introduce Young’s apparent suicide note as evidence — a key reason why the appeals court ordered a new trial for her. The appeals court found Ray was so “ineffective” as Shelton’s defense attorney that he violated her constitutional right to a fair trial.
Other gaps have emerged in Shelton’s case in the years since her murder trial. The prosecution’s case against her relied upon a deputy state medical examiner’s official ruling that Young’s death was a homicide. The pathologist later called the conclusion an “error” due to lack of experience. Prosecutors also used testimony from Clay County sheriff’s deputies that conflicted with actual records.
In the years following Shelton’s conviction, her family reached out to everyone they could, including District Attorney Scott Colom in 2018. They told Colom that Young’s death was a suicide, not a homicide.
After studying her case, Colom began to have questions. “The evidence sounded thin,” he said. “There was not much motive.”
On top of that, he said, if Shelton were truly guilty of murder, “Why would she call 911?”
He reached out to the Mississippi Innocence Project to look into the case. And he later wrote a sworn statement in support of a hearing to determine if Shelton deserved a new trial.
The wall of Colom’s office has a reminder to him about not rushing to judgment: a photo of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, two exonerated men who together spent a total of 30 years behind bars, including time on death row, for murders they didn’t commit.
Colom’s predecessor, Forrest Allgood, prosecuted the men and his office has now seen seven people have their convictions thrown out — the record for any district attorney in the state, according to a Mississippi Today analysis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations.
Asked before about Shelton’s case, Allgood said he didn’t recall it, but he added that just because an appeals court dismisses a case doesn’t mean it’s right. “Appeals courts are made up of fallible human beings,” he said.
He disagreed with the term exoneration when a case is reversed because “there’s a bias toward the accused being innocent, even after a jury says otherwise,” he said.
Colom couldn’t be reached Monday for comment, but he previously said he would “look at what the facts show and do justice” in Shelton’s case.
Not long after arriving at Young’s fatal shooting on Oct. 16, 2009, Clay County sheriff’s deputies concluded his death was a homicide. Shelton, who has maintained her innocence, became the prime suspect because she was the last known person to see Young alive.
Current Sheriff Eddie Scott, then the chief deputy, told a local reporter he’d ruled out the possibility that Young died from suicide or an accident because he had been shot in the chest from 30 feet away.
Only the gun was actually fired from less than an inch away. That’s what a State Crime Lab expert concluded after finding gunfire burns in Young’s jacket.
A jury convicted Shelton of murder in 2015, and she has suffered strokes and other health setbacks in prison. Her family has started a GoFundMe page for her.
“How do you begin to rebuild a life when everything has been stripped away from you? For 11 agonizing years, our family has lived a nightmare,” her daughter, Trinity, wrote. “Her faith and her desire to hold her kids again are the only things that kept her alive.”
She wrote that in prison, “my mom’s health deteriorated drastically. Today, she lives with a severe disability and suffers from constant, violent seizures. Watching her fight for her life behind a prison cell — without the correct medical care — is a pain we wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
Shelton said Monday that before she left prison, other women serving life sentences told her that she inspires them.
She knows there are innocent people in prison, she said, perhaps because of a misunderstanding or a mistake, but “now you are silent and everybody looks at you like you’re some kind of criminal.”
She recalled that when Clay County deputies arrested her in 2011, she asked for an attorney and a phone call but didn’t get them right away. She quoted the officers as saying, “You said you’re innocent, right? So what do you need an attorney for?”
Now that she is free, she wants to help others in their battles for justice, because she realizes now that a wrongful conviction can happen to anyone, she said. “It could be you. It could be your child. It could be your mom. It could be your brother.”