OurTupelo

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..

Len Engel of the Crime and Justice Institute recently laid out what a decade of data shows about Mississippi’s criminal legal process: the highest incarceration rate in the country, sentence lengths for nonviolent offenses growing while the prison population climbs, parole violation readmissions up 150% since 2013.

That analysis makes these trends visible. What it doesn’t capture is what happens at the front end of that process, in the hours and days after arrest, when the quality of legal representation begins to shape everything that follows. Thirty-five years of practice tells me where to look for their causes.

I have practiced criminal law in Mississippi since 1990. I established the first state-funded trial level public defender office in 2001 and have served as state defender since 2016. I served on the task force that offered the recommendations that became House Bill 585 in 2014.

Recently I was in a justice court where a client had spent two weeks in jail on $100,000 bail for possession of a small amount of a controlled substance. His lawyer, appointed days after bail was set, spoke to the client’s grandparents and secured his release to their custody with no bail posted. A good outcome for him, but the two weeks he waited for a lawyer cost the county $1,000 in per diem fees to a private detention center.

Mississippi does not have enforceable statewide standards for indigent defense. Each county and city sets its own budget, its own compensation structure, its own expectations for workload. Despite a court rule requiring counsel be assigned “as soon as practical,” the state Supreme Court lacks the capacity to enforce it — and so the rule is routinely ignored.

The result is profound disparity. In some jurisdictions, attorneys carry caseloads that make meaningful representation impossible. In others, counsel does not meet a client until the day of a hearing. It is routine for attorneys to remain on paper as counsel for months — through indictment — without preparing for trial. Information is lost, cases have to be reconstructed, resolutions are delayed and outcomes are shaped less by the facts than by the capacity of whoever happens to be initially assigned.

Continuity changes that. A client in our Day One pilot office was arrested on a nonviolent felony and identified as a strong candidate for drug court. He wanted to turn his life around. But drug court pleas typically happen only after indictment, which can take a year or more. Rather than letting him wait in jail without treatment, his lawyer worked with the prosecutor to resolve the case with an offer to plea on information. Within 30 days the client entered a sober living facility. 

More people enter the Mississippi Department of Corrections on a probation or parole revocation than on a new crime. That decision — often triggered by a technical violation, not a new offense — frequently happens without anyone in the room whose job is to argue for an alternative. Attorneys carrying caseloads that already exceed what one person can manage do not have the capacity to prepare for revocation hearings the way those hearings deserve. 

The result is that one of the largest drivers of admissions growth in Mississippi is also one of the least examined: not new criminal conduct, but the absence of adequate representation at the moment a person’s supervision status is being decided. We don’t know how many people are going to prison who should be going to a technical violation center, but we know of three people who were able to secure pro bono counsel from prison have had wrongful revocations reversed. 

The same logic applies earlier in the process. Adequate indigent defense requires support services such as social workers, mitigation specialists, investigators. Without them, attorneys cannot identify the clients who would be better served by an intervention court, a treatment program or a diversion option.

The Hinds County Public Defender Office has demonstrated what’s possible: county and private grant funding supported a social worker and two advocate positions, which established partnerships with community mental health and housing providers to secure alternatives to incarceration for clients who would otherwise have waited in jail.

What Mississippi needs is a state-level mandate establishing clear, enforceable standards that apply in every jurisdiction: standards for compensation and expenses, for workload, for when counsel first meets a client, for continuity of representation through all stages of a case. It requires front-end resources where counsel and support services are engaged early, when the trajectory of a case is most open to change.

The 2014 legislation demonstrated that Mississippi can bend these trends when it addresses their structural causes. The task force that produced those recommendations understood that incarceration is the end of a process, not the beginning of one, and that sustainable change requires intervening earlier in that process.

The trends that legislation was designed to address have since reasserted themselves.

The question before the 2027 session is whether Mississippi is prepared to look at the full length of that process, including the quality of representation available to people who cannot afford to hire a lawyer, and act on what the legal counsel finds.

André de Gruy is the state defender at Mississippi’s Office of state Public Defender. He established the first state-funded trial level public defender office in Mississippi in 2001 and served on the Corrections and Criminal Justice Task Force whose recommendations became House Bill 585 in the 2014 legislative session.

Eager to lessen the chaos of the transfer portal era and court fights with players trying to extend their careers, the NCAA approved a new eligibility model for Division I athletes that will allow five seasons of competition over a five-year period that begins with their full-time enrollment or the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever occurs first.

The Division I Cabinet on Tuesday unanimously approved the change from the longstanding tenet of college sports that gave athletes five years to complete four seasons of competition with their eligibility clock starting at the time of enrollment, regardless of age.

The move will all but eliminate waivers or redshirt years for extended eligibility except for religious missions, maternity leave or active-duty military service. No longer will extensions be considered for athletes who are injured.

“While previous NCAA rules have served college sports well for a long time, we heard also loud and clear from NCAA members and student-athletes that eligibility rules should be easier to understand,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said.

The NCAA believes the age-based model will make rules easier to administer and help make roster management more predictable for coaches.

“I think this new rule is one of the most sensible things the NCAA has ever done, and it will absolutely eliminate the type of eligibility litigation that’s predominated lately,” said attorney Tom Mars, who represented Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss in his successful quest for an additional year of eligibility in a case that went to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Mars added, “Let me put it in bottom-line language: There’s no way somebody could file an eligibility case based on a medical waiver now with the new rule. Can’t be done. You can file it, I guess, but it will be immediately dismissed.”

The rules became official when the Cabinet adjourned its meetings on Wednesday and are set to take effect this fall. Division I includes more than 350 schools, some 200,000 athletes and, with football and basketball leading the way, is by far the most lucrative of the three in the NCAA.

The five-in-five language also is included in Senate legislation intended to address numerous concerns across college sports and comes after a wave of lawsuits from athletes seeking to extend their college careers and ability to earn money through revenue sharing and name, image and likeness deals. Still to be seen is whether the new rules will withstand legal scrutiny alongside the existing challenges.

Heisman Trophy runner-up and Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia remains the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging an NCAA rule counting seasons spent at junior colleges against players’ Division I eligibility time. That case is slated for trial in February.

“I wouldn’t say that the rule change itself will slow lawsuits down,” said Sam Ehrlich, a Boise State assistant professor of legal studies in business and management who tracks litigation against the NCAA.

Ehrlich said athletes very well could continue to petition courts for extended eligibility based on antitrust arguments, but appellate courts recently have delivered wins for the NCAA by overturning preliminary injunctions in several cases.

The new eligibility model will affect all athletes who enroll in 2027-28. Currently enrolled athletes with eligibility after the 2025-26 academic year, and those who are incoming freshmen this fall, can apply the age-based model or continue under previous eligibility rules. It would be advantageous this year for some incoming freshman hockey players to use the traditional model if they are coming from the junior ranks and are 20, as is common in the sport.

For schools with current athletes who may be eligible for hardship waivers or extensions of eligibility under current rules, the D-I Cabinet indicated the deadline to submit requests to the NCAA is July 31. After that date, waivers would no longer be available.

Ryan Downton, the attorney for Pavia in his case against the NCAA that won him a sixth year of eligibility last season, said he was happy to see athletes allowed five seasons of competition. But he said it was likely that high school class of 2022 athletes who are now cut off from further competition will go to court.

“These athletes are still within their five-year eligibility window and spent their entire college careers competing against fifth- and sixth-year players due to the COVID waiver,” Downton wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “We hope the courts will correct the unfairness of the NCAA’s ruling and allow class of 2022 players to play their fifth season in 2026-27.”

Ramogi Huma, executive director of the National College Players Association, wrote in a text to the AP that he had not seen the final language that was adopted but that the rule’s “general structure that has been discussed is within reason.”

“But it’s important for athletes to have an opportunity to seek hardship waivers,” he wrote.

Residents across Mississippi this weekend may have to shift from dodging water to dodging the sun.

Just as flooding from Tropical Storm Arthur has waned, the state could see dangerous levels of heat this weekend and early next week, the National Weather Service said Thursday. Heightening that risk is moisture left by the flooding that could increase humidity.

Starting Saturday and until at least next Thursday, parts of Mississippi could see a heat index between 105 and 110 degrees. The conditions could cause heat-related illnesses, NWS Jackson Lead Meteorologist David Cox said.

“So you definitely need to hydrate, always check your cars, make sure no one’s left inside,” Cox said.

NWS issues a heat advisory when the heat index reaches 105 degrees because that’s when there starts to be an increase in such illnesses, he said. The index differs from the regular temperature because it takes humidity into account.

According to NWS forecasts, a number of places could see a heat index of 110 starting early next week, including Jackson, Vicksburg, Greenville, Greenwood and Hattiesburg.

In Jackson, the Pearl River reached its minor flood stage on Monday, but the water level has dropped since Tuesday. Monticello also saw minor flooding, but the level there will start to drop Friday morning, according to the local river gauge.

Updated damage reports released Wednesday show that 248 homes were damaged by Tropical Storm Arthur, which first hit Mississippi late last week. Of those, 15 were destroyed and 79 received major damage. One person, in Franklin County, died in the aftermath. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency gave a breakdown of damages by county, noting these numbers are still subject to change:

• Harrison County – 183 homes, 9 businesses, 8 roads
• Pearl River County – 35 homes, 1 business, 6 roads
• Hancock County – 21 homes, 1 farm, 5 roads, 1 bridge
• Covington County – 5 homes, 1 business, 10 roads
• Rankin County – 2 homes
• Wilkinson County – 1 home, 1 road
• George County – 1 home, 7 roads, 1 bridge
• Stone County – 1 business, 28 roads

Affected areas are accepting donations, specifically buckets, bleach, rags, paper towels, mops, and other cleaning supplies, MEMA said Wednesday. The donation center — at the Fairgrounds Armory at 1207 Mississippi St. in Jackson — will stay open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. as needed.

Unemployment in Mississippi remained unchanged through May, following a national trend. It has held at around 3.8% for the past year.

Nonfarm payroll employment for the state was at a 10-year high at 1,195,400, but more or less unchanged from a year ago and month over month. 

Gov. Tate Reeves celebrated the nonfarm employment number.

“Our state continues to rack up win after win because our economic development strategy is working. Mississippi has more jobs than ever before, and companies are investing billions of billions in our state,” Reeves said. 

Mississippi AG wants to join DOJ in siding with xAI

The Department of Justice sided with xAI in a lawsuit filed by the NAACP over xAI’s operation of mobile gas turbines in Southaven.

The NAACP says that xAI needs an air permit for the turbines under the federal Clean Air Act and asked the court to stop the turbines from operating until they are fully permitted. In filings, the DOJ said that xAI’s artificial intelligence model, Grok, is vital for national security and has been used in the Iran war. A statement from Reeves in support of dismissal was included in the DOJ’s filing.

On Tuesday, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch asked the court to let her file a brief in support of xAI. Fitch said that the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality said that permits were not required and that decision should stand because states have “primary responsibility” when it comes to air pollution control.

Fitch said that granting the NAACP’s request to halt xAI’s turbines would “imperil massive economic benefits to the state and its citizens, cast uncertainty on thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investment and tax revenue, and threaten the state’s ability to attract future projects that benefit its residents.”

Other news:

• Keytronics, an electronics manufacturer, announced an $8.89-million expansion at its Corinth facility. The investment will create 376 jobs.  
• Gould Industries, a Canadian recycled plastics manufacturer, is investing $14 million to set up its first U.S. industrial site in Summit. The new facility is expected to create 65 jobs.
• Area Development, a trade publication covering site selection, awarded Mississippi a Golden Shovel Award for states with a population of less than 3 million people. The publication said it gave the award to Mississippi due to “a surge of warehousing, advanced manufacturing, and energy infrastructure investment that reflects the state’s growing competitiveness in logistics-driven industries.”

What I’ve been reading:

• A new report commissioned for Louisiana’s Public Service Commission found that Entergy Louisiana’s plans to buy a new power plant are driven primarily by demand from Meta’s data center and would cost ratepayers about $8 a month. Entergy responded by saying that Meta is paying for grid maintenance and upgrade costs and will reduce costs for ratepayers in the long term. Here’s a story from Mississippi Today’s environmental reporter, Alex Rozier, on what we know and don’t know about Entergy and Amazon’s deal in our state.
• A paper from Columbia University says that rising electricity prices are the result of a confluence of infrastructure, supply chain issues, policy and demand growth (including from data centers). 

NESHOBA COUNTY — Gov. Tate Reeves said on Thursday that he will likely call lawmakers into a special legislative session soon to redraw the state legislative districts, but he didn’t offer a specific timeline. 

Speaking to reporters in the muddy Founders Square at the Neshoba County Fair, Reeves said he believes lawmakers will eventually redraw congressional, judicial and legislative districts, but he expects lawmakers to take up legislative redistricting in a special session before January. 

“I’ve spent a lot of time giving serious consideration to it,” Reeves said. “I expect it to happen. I’m not going to tell you a date today because I don’t know a date today.” 

The governor also said he’s considering adding other topics to a special session agenda, mainly reforms to the state’s youth court system, because lawmakers mistakenly let the laws creating Mississippi’s youth courts expire earlier this year. 

House Speaker Jason White on Thursday said he anticipates the House and Senate will form a joint committee to tackle redistricting efforts, and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said on Wednesday that he also wants legislators to redraw political districts. 

White, who has previously handled redistricting legislation, told reporters that conversations about redistricting can lead to impassioned debates over race relations in the state, given Mississippi’s long, documented history of trying to prevent Black citizens from registering or voting. 

“This isn’t about erasing our past or forgetting any of that,” White said. “This is about what’s best for Mississippi.” 

Reeves is closing out his second term as governor, and term limits prevent him from running for reelection. The governor said he hopes voters next year will choose a conservative to succeed him in office and continue the state’s economic and education gains in recent years. 

“It shouldn’t be a popularity contest,” Reeves said. “It shouldn’t be about who spends the most money. It shouldn’t be about who knows the most people in one part of the state or the other. It should be based on policy, because elections have consequences.” 

Republican State Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson is one of only two declared gubernatorial candidates for 2027 so far, and the only such candidate to speak at the fair this year. He also gave the fair’s only fire and brimstone speech, and as is often the Baptist preacher’s style, his speech was part political stump and part sermon.

Gipson pitched himself as the un-candidate for next year’s GOP gubernatorial primary and vowed he’s “not a country-club Republican” who would be beholden to big-moneyed special interests.

“I hope I die five minutes before I ever become a country club Republican,” Gipson said. “… I’m the only candidate that’s the full package – legislative experience, executive leadership and private sector experience, and the only candidate that gets up and preaches the word of God every Sunday morning.”

But the other declared gubernatorial candidate, Republican former House Speaker Philip Gunn, while not on the speaking schedule because he’s not an incumbent, spent two days at the fair making the rounds at cabins and on the square, meeting and greeting folks and often surrounded by supporters.

Another potential gubernatorial candidate, billionaire businessman Tommy Duff – the co-richest person in the state along with his brother – also made the rounds at the fair on Thursday.

Duff told Mississippi Today that it’s still “pretty early” for him to make a decision or announcement on running. 

“I love this state, and I’m travelling and meeting people and trying to figure out what the people are thinking about and what we can do to help everybody work together better,” Duff said.

Secretary of State Michael Watson has announced he’s running for lieutenant governor. In his speech, Watson rattled off items he viewed as accomplishments during his two terms as secretary of state. 

He told reporters afterward that, if elected, he wants to focus on reducing government regulations on the business sector and believes he can bridge the divide that has existed in recent years between the House and the Senate and other political subdivisions. 

“If I’m your next lieutenant governor, it’s going to happen,” Watson said. “Leadership matters.” 

Notable quotes and zingers

The Neshoba County Fair is known for its political stump speeches, and several politicians who took to the podium on Thursday showed a little flair. This included:

“We’ve got too many folks in government politicking when you should be governing … Neighboring states have double our GDP. We’re not going to Dollar General our way to success.” – De’Keither Stamps, Central District public service commissioner.

“I look at it like I have 22 wives.” – Willie Simmons, Central District transportation commissioner, on how he views the 22 counties in his district.

“AI didn’t write this speech, all right?” – Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson.

“No one is more excited than she is to not to have to listen to another speech from me.” – Gov. Tate Reeves, introducing his wife, Elee, to the fair crowd and noting that this is the second to last time he’ll address fairgoers as governor as his final term ends next year.

Former Mississippi state Sen. Philip Moran and his son, former Diamondhead City Council Member Alan Moran, were sentenced to prison Wednesday in Hancock County Circuit Court after they were convicted of bribery and conspiracy.

Philip Moran, 65, was sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison for bribery and the maximum five years for conspiracy, with the sentences running consecutively. Judge Christopher Schmidt ordered Philip Moran to spend 12 of those years in prison, with the remainder of the time on post-release supervision.

Alan Moran, 38, was already a convicted sex offender. He received the maximum sentence for bribery and conspiracy, to run consecutively. The judge suspended all but 10 years of his new prison term, with the remainder of that time served under post-release supervision. That sentence will run consecutive to the 12-year sentence Alan Moran is already serving for child exploitation.

Assistant District Attorney Matthew Burrell asked the judge to impose the maximum sentences on both counts to run consecutively.

“One of the foundations of our criminal justice system is that the law is applied equally regardless of age, race, or economic status,” Burrell said.

“The defendants’ actions in this case attempted to violate and shake that foundation and try to call into question the integrity of our justice system,” he said. “They believe that their money, power, and privilege created an exception for them. They believe that their money and influence can buy their way out of trouble. That simply cannot stand in our justice system.”

In addition, Burrell pointed out that the Morans’ actions led to the conviction of two other co-defendants, whom the father and son used as “pawns” to carry out the crime. Burrell was referring to Jeremy Billings and Ian Schexnayder, who have pleaded guilty to bribery and are awaiting sentencing.

At the Morans’ sentencings, over 20 people showed up to support the father and son, including Sheila Moran, who is the wife of Philip and mother of Alan. Defense Attorney Donald Rafferty spoke on Alan Moran’s behalf. Alan Moran tearfully offered a few comments, claiming his dad’s innocence in the crime and asking for leniency for himself, so that he one day could return to be a husband and father to his two children, ages 2 and 4.

“My client is sincerely and deeply sorry for the pain, the agony and the burden that he has put on his family, his father, his mother, and his wife and his children,” Rafferty said.

“Unfortunately, a man’s improper actions can hurt the ones he loves, and in this case he did, but he also wants me to make it perfectly clear to this court and to everybody here … that his dad, Philip, had no knowledge of what he was doing on either case until Jeremy Billings told him.”

‘Goodness in their hearts outweigh mistakes’

Philip Moran addressed the court, asking for leniency so that he could be there to help care for his wife of nearly 43 years along with other family and his grandchildren. Sheila Moran asked for leniency for both her husband and son.

“I know them probably better than anyone else here,” Sheila Moran said. “I can tell you my husband has worked in this county for many, many years” and helped many people during the course of his career.

“Neither one of them is perfect,” she said. “They have made mistakes. I am here to tell you the goodness in their hearts far outweighs their mistakes.”

“Alan is a dedicated and loving father to two loving children,” she said. “Before this nightmare began, my son was fun-loving and enjoyed … nothing more than being with family, including his sister and her family, dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles.”

Before sentencing the Morans, Schmidt addressed the case. “No doubt that this case over the last year has probably caused many people in this courtroom to have sleepless nights: Alan Moran, Philip Moran, their families, the lawyers, the witnesses and, in advance of the hearing today, I can put myself …” in that category as well, Schmidt said.

But Schmidt said “the ordinary standards of honesty” did not apply in this case.

“The facts in this case not only revealed corruption, they revealed arrogance,” he said.

The judge then pointed to one of the most disturbing aspects of the crimes committed by Philip Moran, who served as a Republican in the state Senate from 2012 to 2024. Philip Moran was a member of the state Parole Board at the time of the crimes.

“Perhaps what is most damaging is the fact that Philip Moran committed this crime while holding a position of public trust, one within the very criminal justice system that he now finds himself mired in,” Schmidt said.

“The public should expect and demand that those who serve in positions of public trust will conduct not only their public affairs but also their private affairs above board and with honesty.”

The crimes

Prosecutors said the father and son devised a scheme to offer Alan Moran’s stalking victim, Slade Miller, $20,000 to drop the misdemeanor charge against Alan Moran. Miller rejected the offer, and Alan Moran was later convicted of stalking.

His stalking conviction and subsequent indictment in the bribery case led to the revocation of his probation in a felony child exploitation conviction, resulting in a 12-year prison sentence.

Assistant District Attorneys Chris Daniel and Burrell prosecuted the case.

Billings and Schexnayder pleaded guilty to a felony bribery charge. Both testified against the Morans during their trial earlier this month.

The bribery investigation began in December 2024 after Miller reported to Waveland police that two men on motorcycles approached him in the Lowe’s parking lot and offered him cash to drop the stalking charge. According to testimony, the scheme began when Alan Moran summoned Billings to the family’s business in Kiln and asked him to offer Miller $20,000 in exchange for dropping the charge.

Prosecutors allege Philip Moran was present and overheard the conversation. Philip Moran testified in his own defense and denied hearing any discussion about bribing the stalking victim. He said he later learned his son had given Billings money to speak with Miller but maintained the money was not intended as a bribe.

When Billings first went to meet Alan Moran about the bribe, he said he appeared “afraid and upset.”

Billings said Alan Moran provided him with a mugshot of Miller so he could identify him along with the cash. In exchange for carrying out the plan, Billings was promised help paying off a truck, while Schexnayder testified he was promised $10,000 for his role. Neither man was paid.

Billings and Schexnayder rode motorcycles to Lowe’s, where the stalking victim worked, to offer the bribe. They entered the store with their helmets on their heads and later made the offer in the Lowe’s parking lot before approaching him again in the parking lot of Dirt Cheap. The pair left with the cash after the victim declined the offer and reported the crime to Waveland police.

In addition to reviewing phone records, an FBI task force officer gathered evidence related to a $30,000 cash loan withdrawal on a CD that Philip Moran made Nov. 18, 2024, at Keesler Federal Credit Union in Diamondhead. Authorities believe the elder Moran took out the cash loan to cover the bribery expense.

Philip Moran said he was planning to use the money to buy a classic car.

Waveland Deputy Chief Eddie Hursey disputed those claims, saying the man selling the classic car said Moran didn’t seem serious about buying the car.

Billings said Alan Moran was taken into custody a short time after the bribery attempt. He said Philip Moran later called him about returning the money, but referred to the cash as “tools.”

Billings said he took the cash back to Philip Moran’s office in Kiln and left it on his desk. Throughout his testimony, Philip Moran tried to distance himself from the crimes and portrayed himself as someone who had never committed a crime.

A jury took a little over an hour to convict the father and son.

“Public confidence in the judicial system depends on the belief that the law applies equally to everyone,” District Attorney Crosby Parker said. “Efforts to bribe victims in order to avoid accountability undermine that confidence and threaten the integrity of the justice process. We commend the Waveland Police Department and the FBI for their outstanding work in investigating this matter and protecting the integrity of our system of justice.”

Jackson officials have asked a private company that runs the city’s publicly funded bus system for a “contingency plan” that could prevent some riders from being stranded if the union representing JTRAN employees goes on strike. 

A mid-June vote to strike by the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1208 surprised first-term Mayor John Horhn and his administration, said Pieter Teeuwissen, the city’s chief administrative officer. Although the strike has been authorized, union members have not announced when it will begin. Since the vote, city officials have been talking with MV Transportation, the Texas-based company that won JTRAN’s contract in 2024. 

“Once MV advises of its contingency plan, the city will consider that information and take appropriate action, if any,” Teeuwissen told Mississippi Today.  

The vote to strike by JTRAN workers puts Horhn’s administration in an unusual position in Mississippi, where elected officials rarely go toe-to-toe with unions because state law prohibits public employees from striking. 

But Horhn, the son of a union leader, would not be the first Jackson mayor to face striking bus workers: When the union went on strike in 2024, his predecessor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, initially did not let MV Transportation use replacement drivers, according to company officials. 

The strike breakers sat in hotels. After two weeks, the city decided to let MV Transportation use its contingent drivers for “life-sustaining trips,” such as dialysis appointments, said Leland Peterson, a senior vice president. 

“The strike ended the next day,” he said. 

Christine Welch, the city’s deputy director of transportation, did not respond immediately to Mississippi Today’s questions this week about the city permitting MV Transportation to use replacement drivers during the 2024 strike.

JTRAN represents a lifeline for low-income and disabled Jacksonians who use the bus to get to work, medical appointments or the grocery store. Though JTRAN is a publicly funded service, its unionized employees work for MV Transportation, which calls itself the largest privately-owned transportation company in America. 

The two sides have been negotiating a collective bargaining agreement out of public view since a previous version expired in December. The union has been seeking competitive pay raises, while MV Transportation has proposed a number of changes to JTRAN, including new safety policies and the ability to hire drivers without commercial licenses to operate smaller vehicles for on-demand “microtransit” services.

But in late May, tensions came to a head after the union learned that Horhn’s administration was presenting the city council with a plan drafted by MV Transportation that would trim 20% of JTRAN’s roughly $9 million budget.

The cost-cutting proposal would eliminate two fixed routes, cease Saturday service and shorten the work day by two hours. It would also use the city’s existing fleet of paratransit vehicles to expand the microtransit services, raising concerns among a vocal contingent of disabled riders who rely on JTRAN.

Gary Coles, MV Transportation’s chief customer success officer, called the proposal a win for all involved because it would lead to savings in the existing contract the company would use to pay JTRAN workers more.

“We felt it was a path to being able to help the city with their budget issues that they were having right now,” he said. 

The union didn’t see it that way. 

After Charles Tornes, the union president, emailed every city council member on May 29 to voice concerns that the plan undermined their negotiations, Teeuwissen pulled a contract amendment containing the proposal from the council’s agenda on June 2 and referred it to a committee. 

“Anything that has to do with JTRAN deserves a full vetting and while we certainly are concerned about cost, we also have to be concerned about those we do serve with JTRAN,” Teeuwissen told the council. 

Still, Teeuwissen, who has been leading a charge to tighten the city’s budget amid a sizable deficit, warned council members that JTRAN wouldn’t make it through the current fiscal year without additional money.

The shortfall is in part due to the unexpectedly high cost of gas this year, Teeuwissen said, as JTRAN buses get four miles to the gallon. 

“Buses are expensive,” he said.

Out of a $330 million budget, the city pays roughly $9 million for its contract with MV Transportation. The company’s proposed overhaul would cut about $1.8 million from that, Coles said. 

“We stop losing money, which we’ve been losing basically since we got there,” he told Mississippi Today. 

After the union announced its intent to strike, Coles said he spoke to Angela Brown, director of Jackson’s Planning and Development Department, and she asked him how the company could keep the buses running. 

“If, in fact, a strike does happen we are hopeful that we are able to bring services to bear to at least provide those essential services like medical care,” Coles said. 

The majority of JTRAN’s funding comes from the city of Jackson, with fares generating just $378,000 in revenue in 2024, according to data that JTRAN reported to the federal government. Most riders pay $1.50, while paratransit riders pay $3. In 1990, it cost the city $3 million to operate JTRAN, with fares – which were just 60 cents – bringing in $600,000, according to archival news reports.

It is common for fares to make up a small portion of a transit system’s operating revenues, according to Jacob Wasserman, a researcher at the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. 

“It is a social service anywhere except the densest parts of New York and San Francisco,” he said. “Until we build our cities a certain way, that’s going to be its main purpose.”

JTRAN has received federal funding in the past, but it didn’t support operating expenses, according to federal reports. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded the system more than $13 million to upgrade its buses. 

That same year, Lumumba announced changes to JTRAN, including hundreds of new signs and 12 redesigned bus routes. 

“We now look like any city in the United States of America,” Welch, the deputy director of transportation, said at a March 2024 event unveiling the changes. 

But when it comes to ridership, JTRAN lags behind bus systems in peer cities. American Community Survey data shows that in Jackson, fewer people use the bus as their primary means of transportation to work than in Montgomery, Alabama, or Little Rock, Arkansas. 

“In other words, JTRAN’s return on investment in transit is well below that of similar transit agencies,” according to a 2022 transit study undertaken by the Lumumba administration. 

City data shows JTRAN gives tens of thousands of rides a month, though the exact number of people served is unknown. When asked for the number of people who ride the bus, a city spokesperson told Mississippi Today to submit a public records request. 

Jacksonians who do ride the bus really need the service, according to riders interviewed by Mississippi Today. 

Zachary Austin, a 57-year-old employee at the Grocery Depot in Westland Plaza, takes the bus to work every day and has done so on-and-off for the past 16 years. 

“That’s my only transportation,” he said during an interview at downtown’s Union Station. 

A few years ago, Austin said he had a car but a drunk driver totaled it. During the 2024 bus strike, he said he found ways to get to work, but he heard that others who couldn’t lost their jobs.

Ward 5 Council Member Vernon Hartley said he is hoping the company will keep the buses running if the union goes on strike. 

“I don’t get the calls from the folks asking about union busting,” he said. “I get the calls from the folks saying they’re going to miss their dialysis appointment or they can’t get to the grocery store.”

Tornes, the union president, said he’s heard from Ward 3 Council Member Kenneth Stokes and Ward 7 Council Member Kevin Parkinson but has yet to speak with Horhn or Teeuwissen about the potential strike. 

“We’ve been chartered for a long time and to ignore that this is a unionized property is beyond me,” he said. 

During last year’s campaign, Horhn won endorsements from the Communication Workers of America and its affiliate, the Mississippi Alliance of State Employees. He was also endorsed by the city’s firefighter union. 

Horhn’s father, Charlie Horhn, was a union organizer and leader in Jackson and served as the president of the Mississippi AFL-CIO.

Correction 6/25/26: This story has been updated to reflect that paratransit riders pay a $3 fare.

When local officials try to block the public from seeing what goes on in a jail, the calls they make to 911 can offer a view into how people there are being treated, and which problems jail employees struggle to address on their own. 

A surge in emergency responses to a jail can reveal patterns of medical neglect or widespread drug use, as well as other chronic issues, from detainees starting fires to fights or suicide attempts.

Corrections officers and medical personnel in jails are considered first responders, said Michele Deitch, a former Texas prison monitor and director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas-Austin. When a jail consistently makes emergency calls for outside help, she added, it suggests that larger, systemic problems are likely going unaddressed. 

“If there’s a crisis going on, whether it’s a fight or a medical situation, they’re supposed to have the people on-site to deal with that. It just seems odd to me that they need to reach outside the jail to have someone deal with an emergency,” Deitch noted. 

Local governments have a constitutional obligation to protect and care for anyone they hold in custody, Dietch said. Even if jail administrators outsource their responsibility to care for people to another agency, the cost still falls on the county. “Either they’re paying for better care in the jail,” Deitch said, “or they’re paying for emergency services that get sent to the jail.”  

When disability rights lawyers sued a South Carolina jail in 2024 alleging that it violated the constitutional rights of people with mental illness held there, they pointed to a 50% surge in 911 calls over the previous three years. Calls related to substance abuse had more than quadrupled in that time, and reported stabbings and puncture wounds also jumped.

To see how local jails are handling emergencies, The Marshall Project’s teams in Cleveland, Ohio; St. Louis, Missouri; and Jackson, Mississippi, analyzed months of 911 records. Listening to calls and reviewing emergency medical logs revealed patterns of substance abuse and mental health crises in the jails, violent assaults and a staff culture that neglects detainees until tensions among people inside escalate into a crisis. 

Jackson

The Raymond Detention Center in Hinds County, Mississippi, called 911 for help twice a day last year, on average. According to Hinds County Sheriff’s dispatch logs obtained by The Marshall Project – Jackson, the office received 740 calls in 2025 from the jail, which is staffed by its own officers. 

A former county jail administrator said that she was disturbed by the frequency of calls at the facility.  

“That number alone is alarming, and speaks to a much broader systemic failure,” said Kathryn Bryan, who oversaw the jail until 2022. “Staffing levels, training, command support, almost every core competency in jail operations has to fail in order to come up with an annual number as exorbitant as that.”

Nearly half of the 911 calls to the sheriff’s department were coded as “jail walkthrough.” Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to explain what a jail walkthrough is, saying he would not comment on security measures at the jail. 

“That’s just cover-up language. I have never heard of that in my whole career,” Bryan said. “What they’re doing is trying to obscure what’s really going on.” 

The frequency of 911 calls from the jail, which regularly holds around 500 people with only about 70 corrections officers, according to a federal monitoring report from last year, speaks to the broad dysfunction that has plagued the facility for more than a decade. 

The logs show 150 calls about assaults and dozens related to contraband or medical emergencies.

“When there’s a jail that’s fully staffed or well-trained, usually they handle business in-house,” Bryan said. 

The Marshall Project – Jackson has reported on this dysfunction: multiple preventable deaths, broken cell locks, an extortion system that has exploited detainees by forcing them to pay to use toilets, and overcrowding that leaves people to sleep on filthy floors.

Since October, the jail has been under the control of a federal receiver, the result of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation and a decade-long court battle. 

Understaffing has been one of the most persistent issues at the jail.

“We will never reach a constitutional, sustainable jail if we don’t increase the staff,” said the receiver, Wendell M. France, in a February court hearing.

Both the quality and the quantity of officers worry Bryan, the former jail administrator, who noted that the officers are “sickeningly undertrained” and ill-equipped to handle problems that arise. 

Staff levels have declined every year since 2021. This has affected the county’s ability to provide basic services to detainees and keep people in the facility safe, France said in the court hearing. He described a facility that had fallen into disrepair after being ripped apart by unsupervised detainees. 

The county is building a new jail in Jackson that is scheduled to be completed in 2028. Some detainees may be moved there as early as this fall, when the first phase of construction is completed. 

However, Bryan said she worries that the county will lean too heavily into the new jail as a fix-all solution to the problems illustrated by the 911 calls. 

“[The new jail] is not going to solve their staffing problems; it’s not going to solve their lack of training,” Bryan said. “It’s just going to get worse in a pretty facility.” 

Cleveland

Workers at the Cuyahoga County jail in Cleveland called 911 for emergency assistance 845 times last year, according to data provided by the city. Many of the calls were for overdoses, chest pains or other medical emergencies typical for a facility that houses about 1,500 people at a time. But there were also calls triggered by people detained at the jail ingesting batteries or bleach, and others were for “near hanging, strangulation or suffocation.” Other calls pertained to people dealing with psychosis, catatonia or altered mental status from alcohol or drug withdrawal. 

Cuyahoga County spokesperson Kelly Woodard declined to comment on 911 calls to the jail and operations, citing legal counsel from the county’s law department and the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office.

People are transported to the hospital for issues that were once handled internally, including psychiatric calls, said Adam Chaloupka, general counsel for the Ohio Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, which represents the jail’s corrections officers. The jail has shifted care away from in-house nurses and doctors to its county-owned medical provider, MetroHealth, Chaloupka said. And, while some medical workers remain at the jail during business hours, the facility no longer provides the same level of on-site care — such as having a doctor on duty overnight — on weekends or holidays. 

Chaloupka said that when someone held in the jail has to go to an outside hospital, a corrections officer must accompany them, and these frequent transports strain the already-limited staffing inside the facility. 

A county-commissioned staffing analysis of the jail, published in October 2025, found that emergency transports to the hospital resulted in the jail shutting down posts due to a lack of officers. When this happened, one officer had to oversee multiple housing units. As a result, men and women were locked in their cells for hours at a time, Chaloupka said.

When workers at the jail call 911, records suggest they do not always know how to respond to an emergency or even accurately identify their location to dispatchers. 

In one call to 911, following an apparent suicide attempt by a 42-year-old woman in December, the jail employee who called for help didn’t know the address of the facility or its phone number. In some cases, 911 wasn’t called until the person was already cold to the touch. Jennifer Wade, 41, entered the jail in September 2024 because a state psychiatric hospital refused to admit her due to her frail physical health. In February 2025, jail workers found her unconscious on the floor of her cell and called 911. By the time they discovered her, she was cold and was later pronounced dead from congestive heart failure. 

Chaloupka said corrections officers are not permitted or trained to call 911. He recalled jail deaths where “the COs were accused of not providing medical care,” but he said they are trained to call for the facility’s medical workers and then wait for help. 

“It might sound inhumane, but the policies don’t require them to. The policies are like, they just hit the button … to alert the medical staff,” Chaloupka said. 

St. Louis

Assaults were one of the most common reasons that emergency medical personnel were called to the St. Louis city jail over a three-month period between September and December last year, according to records provided by the city’s Bureau of Emergency Medical Services. Emergency calls for help give a rare view into the jail’s dependence on first responders to both break up fights and provide aid after an attack. 

There were nine emergency medical responses attributed to assaults, representing roughly 1 out of every 6 calls. They were the most frequent reason for emergency calls after the broad category of “sick person.” Although the 911 records do not specify whether the assaults were directed at incarcerated people or jail employees, people who have been detained in the jail and their lawyers said in interviews with The Marshall Project – St. Louis that both are widespread. 

“It’s pretty constant that people are getting jumped, jumping other people, getting stabbed,” said Erin Moore, a state public defender in St. Louis who often represents people held in the jail. 

The jail’s commissioner, Nate Hayward, declined to answer questions from The Marshall Project – St. Louis about violence in the jail and why guards frequently are forced to call 911 for assistance. 

Based on their conversations with clients, attorneys said brawls can stem from arguments that started on the outside, but people also often fight over who gets access to the jail’s limited supply of resources, such as digital tablets, soap or detergent. According to city reports, the St. Louis jail houses hundreds of people with mental health challenges, and those conditions can be exacerbated by being locked up without adequate treatment.

“They don’t have enough medical staff. They don’t have enough COs,” said Moore. “I had a client who, anytime they would try and move him between cells, [officers] would call the police to help them do it [because] he was volatile. They couldn’t even move him themselves.” 

Moore and other lawyers said that some of the jail’s housing units are chronically on lockdown because there aren’t enough officers working to let people out during scheduled recreation hours. Locking people in their cells for 23 or 24 hours a day heightens tensions, attorneys said, making people more agitated and itching to fight when they are let out. 

At the same time, in other units, some officers allow people out and about in the common areas or leave cell doors unlocked, which is another way fights can happen. 

For months, the jail has been operating with roughly half the budgeted number of officers, even as the detainee population climbs. The jail’s average daily population hovers just under 800 people, with fewer than 80 corrections officers spread across three shifts. 

“There’s just way more people in the jail than there are adequate staff to provide time out [of cells] or help people get showers or take people to get medical care,” said Maureen Hanlon, an attorney with the legal advocacy organization Arch City Defenders. “People are coming in in such a rough state, and then once you’re there, it’s such a terrible experience that it’s only predictable that tensions would escalate.” 

Hanlon said the responsibility to ensure the safety of detainees is shared between jail administrators and circuit court judges, noting that both fall short of their legal obligation to ensure the well-being of people in the jail.

In a routine quarterly grand jury report on the jail from last fall, jurors who visited the facility reported that conditions were “concerning for daily living of the inmates,” adding “we were only shown the portions they wanted us to see.” 

When asked whether the court has an obligation to respond to concerns raised about conditions in the jail, the judges who oversaw the grand jury last fall — Judges Madeline Connolly and Jason Sengheiser — declined to comment, as did Presiding Judge Christopher McGraugh. A spokesperson for the circuit court in St. Louis City said he did not know whether the court had any protocol for responding to reports of poor conditions at the jail and said he “won’t speculate about what the court would do in certain situations, but if there’s an emergency at the jail, police/fire/EMS would be asked to respond.”

In October, a circuit judge noted that understaffing in the jail was leading to increased violence and ordered the St. Louis sheriff’s office to oversee the transportation of detainees to the hospital instead of the city’s corrections officers.

Attorneys stressed that for the jail to properly care for people, it would need to dramatically decrease its population and dramatically increase mental health and other resources. 

“There’s not enough food, there’s not enough rec. There’s not enough tablets. There’s not enough to do,” said Moore, the public defender. “If they had half the number of people in there, I think some things could change.”

This story was published in partnership with Mississippi Today. Marshall Project – Jackson, a nonprofit news team covering Mississippi’s criminal justice systems. Sign up for their Jackson newsletter, and follow The Marshall Project on Instagram, Reddit and YouTube

This article was produced by the Deep South Today Investigative Reporting Center in collaboration with The New York Times. Learn more about our work here.

The Office of the State Public Defender in Mississippi filed a lawsuit Wednesday arguing that state officials are jeopardizing the rights of parents and children who find themselves in youth court.

The filing came just days before a seismic change in state law is scheduled to take effect July 1. Defense attorneys across the state argue that the change will worsen the already spotty access to youth court case information they need to adequately defend their clients.

Mississippi law makes youth court proceedings and records strictly confidential. That is left unchanged. But a separate law that contains the necessary exceptions to confidentiality – which allow the child welfare agency, courts, providers and lawyers to communicate and ensure families are treated fairly and receive needed services – is set to vanish next week. The statute has an automatic repealer, meaning the Legislature must actively renew it every few years.

In their session earlier this year, lawmakers considered a youth court reform bill, which, among other sweeping changes, would have kept the exceptions to confidentiality intact. But after much negotiation, lawmakers let the proposal die in the final days of the session without renewing the exceptions. 

The public defenders’ complaint described the impending law change as a “ticking time bomb” and called out officials on all levels for failing to take action. 

In the civil rights lawsuit, filed against the Administrative Office of the Courts, the public defender’s office is asking the federal court to declare the practice of denying youth court records unconstitutional. It also requests a temporary restraining order and injunction requiring the office to provide counsel for parents with access to youth court records.

Come next week, the lawyers argued they’ll be otherwise blocked from accessing their client’s records – something they say already occurs in some counties, but would become mandatory statewide. 

In the impending legal landscape, Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services Commissioner Andrea Sanders warned that youth court proceedings would “grind to a halt,” Mississippi Today first reported in May. The change could also jeopardize parents’ ability to push back against court decisions they think are unfair, defense lawyers said.

The Administrative Office of the Courts was not responsible for the law lapsing, but it governs the policies and procedures of youth court access. The lawsuit alleges that both the office and local youth court judges routinely deny requests for access to records from parent defenders.

“The fact it’s going to go from bad to worse is why we felt we had to file today,” said State Public Defender Andre De Gruy.

Not all counties are the same. Lee County Court Judge Staci Bevill, who oversees youth court cases, said access to records isn’t an issue in her county because parent defenders in her court are granted access to the case management system. For any outside private attorneys taking youth court cases before her, she enters an order giving them access. 

Bevill, who chairs the Council of Youth Court Judges, said she’s also working with other youth court judges on a stock order they may file in hopes of rectifying the upcoming lapse in confidentiality exceptions and continuing providing records. But there’s no mandate that judges across the state participate.

Parents can appeal if a family court judge revokes custody of their children. But these challenges are relatively uncommon and difficult to raise, experts told Mississippi Today, in part because of the difficulties accessing court records. Appeals could become even harder, if not impossible, starting next week without a measure to allow such records to be obtained by defense layers, experts said.

Take the case of Redonn Malone, a father who is incarcerated and nearly lost parental rights to his now 3-year-old child. He secured a rare legal victory at the Mississippi Supreme Court last week.

When Malone’s baby tested positive for drugs after birth, child welfare officials took custody of the child and recommended Malone take rehabilitative measures for them to reunify. But a Jackson County judge disagreed. After hearing about Malone’s criminal history, including that Malone had stabbed a man in 2021, the judge determined the state did not have to make the required efforts to reunify Malone with his child. Malone later received a 15-year prison sentence for the assault. The next step would have been to terminate his parental rights.

But four state Supreme Court justices overturned the youth court judge’s decision on June 18, finding that Malone’s past offenses did not meet the legal standard for bypassing reunification. The opinion returned the case to youth court, providing Malone another opportunity. “The youth court ‘acknowledged that Malone was excited about being a father for the first time in his life,’” the opinion reads.

The Office of the State Public Defender represented Malone.

The office argued in its lawsuit filed Wednesday that making youth court records entirely inaccessible to parents and their lawyers would violate the parents’ constitutional rights to due process. There are other concerns, including whether child protection workers could communicate information to doctors or service providers.

“I really think youth court is going to end up shutting down because CPS is not allowed to share information. They can be held criminally liable for it,” said Jennifer Morgan, the parent defense program manager for the public defender’s office. “Our clients, the parents, have the greatest interest in information about their children and we want to make sure that right is preserved for them.”

The public defenders’ lawsuit was filed against the Administrative Office of the Courts, which helps run the day-to-day operation of Mississippi’s judicial system and controls access to the statewide filing and docket management system for youth courts. A representative said she could not comment on pending litigation.

Regardless of the impending statute change, the complaint alleges that the state’s youth court system is already structured in a way that leads to constitutional violations. The suit takes issue with secrecy around court decisions in child protection cases as well as delinquency cases against minors. Youth courts make “life-changing decisions behind closed doors,” the lawsuit states, such as permanently severing parental rights or locking children in detention.

Without access, the lawsuit argues, “parents and children are completely in the dark about why the government is trying to destroy their family or lock up a child, and the attorneys standing next to them function as little more than lay companions, stripped of any meaningful ability to apply their expertise and experience to oppose the full weight of the Mississippi government bearing down on their clients’ fundamental rights.”

It describes the custom of some judges, based on their interpretation of the confidentiality statute, of ordering families with youth court cases not to speak about their case with anyone or risk jail time. It also claimed that judges and CPS may retaliate against parents they deem difficult.

“The broad range of outcomes you have is because people can’t talk to each other. The secrecy envelopes everything,” said Arman Miri, a defense attorney who represents parents in the Pine Belt area and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. 

U.S. District Judge Glen H. Davidson ruled Wednesday that the plaintiffs in Harris v. DeSoto County did not provide enough evidence that DeSoto County district maps were drawn to intentionally dilute Black voting power.

In ruling for DeSoto County, Davidson wrote, “plaintiffs cannot prove their claims for vote dilution pursuant to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and judgment must be awarded to defendants.”

Davidson’s ruling comes after hearing arguments in the case in March,

The federal lawsuit, filed in September of 2024, alleged that the 2022 DeSoto County electoral map  diluted Black voting power in county office elections. The plaintiffs sought a new redistricting plan and special elections for positions on the boards of supervisors and education and for the election commission, plus the offices of constable and justice court judge. 

The ruling comes in the wake of the recent U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Louisiana v Callias. The decision weakened the federal Voting Rights Act’s protections against racially discriminatory redistricting.

The ruling triggered protests and political battles over redistricting and the future of voting rights across the country.

The ACLU of Mississippi released a statement calling the decision in the DeSoto County case  “deeply disappointing.”

“The (recent U.S. Supreme Court) Callais opinion pretends to adhere to the text of the Voting Rights Act and only updates the test for proving vote dilution,” the statement read. “In reality, the Supreme Court is directing federal courts to close their eyes and ignore the clear results of discriminatory maps.”

Mike Hurst, state Republican Party chairman, represented DeSoto County in the case. Hurst told MPB the case was nothing more than, “Democrats are mad they can’t win an election in DeSoto County because it’s a Republican county.” 

DeSoto County, located just south of Memphis in northwest Mississippi, has been one of the state’s fastest growing counties for years. The Black population of DeSoto also has been growing and now represents more than 30% of the total population of 190,000.

None of the 25 county offices determined by the map is held by a Black person. However, DeSoto County does have a Black sheriff elected countywide, Democratic Black state legislators elected from majority-Black districts and a Black Republican House member elected from a majority-white district. The lawsuit did not address legislative districts.