Mississippi hospital leaders have been begging for help for months, and the Legislature has answered the call — though some advocates and lawmakers say it’s not nearly enough.
Both chambers on Tuesday approved a $103.7 million grant program that will be split by Mississippi’s struggling hospitals.
The pandemic weakened the state’s already-stressed health care infrastructure — costs for supplies and workers went up, and reimbursements from insurance providers did not. Many of the state’s hospitals have been bleeding out for the past few years, shutting floors and service lines one by one.
Now, a third of Mississippi’s rural hospitals are at risk of closure, and half of those within a couple of years. It’s a situation poised to worsen health outcomes in a state with already some of the worst in the country.
Both legislative chambers this week passed Senate Bill 2372, which establishes a grant program for hospitals, and House Bill 271, which funds it.
Previously, the Senate’s version of the bill aimed to give $80 million to hospitals, focusing its efforts on rural health care providers. Instead, the House wanted to give the funds to larger hospitals.
After closed-door deliberations among six legislative Republicans, the two sides reached a compromise on Tuesday: They’re distributing $103 million to hospitals through a hybrid funding model, using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, according to the bill. The Mississippi Department of Health is receiving $700,000 to administer the program, according to Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven.
The compromise falls short of what hospital leaders and some rank-and-file lawmakers said was needed. The Mississippi Hospital Association projected early this year that hospitals would need $230 million in extra funds to stay afloat. Despite the increase in grants, they’re still about $40 million short.
Negotiations of the grant program came as the state sits on a record revenue surplus of nearly $4 billion. And Republican lawmakers continue to leave more than $1 billion per year on the table by rejecting Medicaid expansion.
Tim Moore, president of the MHA, said on behalf of state hospitals that health care leaders are very appreciative of the actions taken by the Legislature to pass the measure, especially the creation of an allocation model that supports all hospitals, no matter the location or size.
But he added the lower-than-needed total will not solve the ongoing hospital crisis — that new, recurring revenue will along with a remodeling of Mississippi’s health care and payment infrastructure.
“The solution has not changed,” Moore said. “Payer issues and the burden of uncompensated care must be addressed. The Mississippi hospital system that provides care to all Mississippians costs $23 million dollars a day to operate. Any sustainable business model must generate adequate revenues to cover expenses. Hospitals are no exception.
“If a long term solution is not developed, access to care will decline and fewer services will be offered at local community hospitals,” Moore said.
Legislative Democrats in January proposed a grant program that would appropriate $200 million to the struggling hospitals and used the opportunity to blast Republicans’ inaction on the issue. This week, most House and Senate Democrats voted to approve the Republicans’ $104 million grant program but used floor debate to argue that the state should be doing more.
"It is particularly galling that in the same weekend when we saw Mississippians struggle to find emergency health care after a natural disaster, Republican leaders still felt it appropriate to allocate less than half of what hospitals have been begging for just to keep their doors open,” Rep. Robert Johnson, the House Democratic leader from Natchez, said on Tuesday. “They stood up and told all of us how awful the devastation of the tornado was, then they immediately turned around and refused to do the bare minimum.
“In one breath Republicans are telling us that we'll rebuild from the storm, that they are pro-life, that they want a better future for the state,” Johnson continued. “And in the next breath they're saying, 'Take this and shut up.' All while they're telling us we're in the best financial shape we've ever been in. It would be shocking if it weren’t so completely expected."
Ahead of the final vote in the House and Senate on Tuesday, Republican lawmakers laid out the basic formula for the grant program. If a hospital has more than 100 beds, it will receive a base amount of $1 million. Hospitals with an emergency room and fewer than 100 beds will receive $625,000.
Specialty hospitals, such as Brentwood Behavioral Healthcare in Flowood which is an inpatient psychiatric treatment center, and critical access hospitals will get a base of $500,000. Critical access hospitals have very few inpatient beds but get more money for services they provide. Critical access hospitals, such as Sharkey Issaquena Community Hospital in Rolling Fork, are a designation a step below acute hospitals and are typically reimbursed by Medicare at a rate of 101%, theoretically allowing a 1% profit. Acute hospitals with no emergency rooms get $300,000 as a base amount.
Then, hospitals get an extra $250,000 if they operate small rural emergency rooms and a little less than $2,000 for each bed they have.
The most any one hospital is receiving is $2.3 million, which is going to University Hospitals & Health System. Some providers, such as Diamond Grove mental health clinic in Louisville, are receiving nothing. Others, like Jasper General Hospital, are receiving as little as $331,502.
Major hospital systems including Merit Health, North Mississippi Medical Center and Baptist Memorial are getting millions.
“In the original Senate bill, some hospitals received nothing,” Rep. Sam Mims, a Republican from Natchez and chair of the House Public Health and Human Services committee, said on the floor Tuesday. “This makes sure they all receive something.”
Mims, who was one of the three House negotiators of the grant program, works for Merit Health.
Neshoba County General Hospital in Philadelphia, the county’s only hospital, is getting just under $1 million in grant money. In recent months, the hospital has closed one of its acute floor wings and nurse stations — in the past decade, admissions have gone down by half.
Neshoba General CEO Lee McCall said that the hospital’s loss in the past five months is relatively equal to the extra grant money, and it’s about $200,000 more than what he expected to receive from the state. The hospital projects a $2.5 million loss this year.
“This amount and the Medicaid enhanced amounts will help significantly by cutting that deficit by more than half,” he said, referring to the extra money hospitals are receiving in supplemental MHAP payments, or payments hospitals receive to offset unequal reimbursement rates. “We are also implementing other cost cutting measures and initiatives to shrink the loss gap. It is much appreciated.”
He stressed that the grant money will get the hospital to temporarily break even, but there are still seven months to go in the year — and the years beyond that.
“The one time grant funding is much appreciated, but doesn’t fix the ongoing problems we’re dealing with in hospitals,” McCall said.
The Delta’s Greenwood Leflore Hospital is arguably in one of the most dire financial situations of all hospitals in the state. The hospital is also getting a little less than $1 million under the new program.
The hospital has already shuttered their neurology, urology and labor and delivery units, among others, in an effort to cut costs. They’re months away from closing, according to their interim CEO Gary Marchand.
“We appreciate the grant funds, and it will help in our efforts to continue operations in the short term,” Marchand said when reached by text Tuesday. “It will replace a portion of the cash reserves used during the pandemic.”
The legislation now goes to Gov. Tate Reeves for final approval.
It’s not clear when funds will be distributed. According to Jim Craig, senior deputy at the Mississippi Department of Health, the division does not yet have a timeline for the grant program's implementation.
At the beginning of the 2023 legislative session, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann announced a plan to save Mississippi’s failing rural hospitals.
The first-term Senate leader proposed a hodgepodge of grants and programs including four bills costing upwards of $100 million that would grant extra money to hospitals, remove legal barriers to consolidating small hospitals and incentivize the retention of nurses and doctors.
Months later, all four of those bills have passed. Three are waiting on Gov. Reeves’ final approval.
The state of Mississippi’s rural health care infrastructure is tenuous. A third of the state’s rural hospitals are at risk of closure, and half of those in a few years, according to a report by the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. Their closures could spell devastation for the communities they serve, in a state with some of the worst health outcomes in the country.
Hosemann said he spoke with statewide hospital and health care leaders in developing the plan. Notably, he steered away from floating Medicaid expansion, which would draw down more than a billion dollars from the federal government.
But he did voice support for extending postpartum Medicaid coverage and wanted to work with the state Division of Medicaid and Gov. Tate Reeves to increase reimbursements to hospitals. Both those goals were accomplished, with the Legislature extending postpartum coverage to 12 months in February, and reimbursements to hospitals have increased, though only by about $40 million, a far cry from the $230 million health care experts say they need. Much of the difference will be made up by grants from the Legislature, but they’re short in total about $40 million.
On Tuesday, both chambers passed Senate Bill 2372, which establishes the hospital grant program, and House Bill 271, the appropriations bill that funds it. Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, told lawmakers that $700,000 would go to the Department of Health to administer the program, and the rest, $103 million, would go to hospitals.
On the Senate floor on Monday, debate about the hospital grants turned into a debate about broader Medicaid expansion and how the proposed grant program doesn’t do enough to help hospitals. Several Democratic senators pointed out the $103 million could be just as easily spent as the state’s match for federal Medicaid dollars under expansion.
“Less than 30 minutes ago, the governor of red North Carolina signed a bill to expand Medicaid,” Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, said on Monday. “You can put $100 million in this fund for hospitals and have $100 million, or you can put $100 million over here, and have $1 billion for hospitals.”
As lawmakers enter the final few days of the 2023 legislative session, here’s where Hosemann’s legislation stands. Because the state budget hasn’t been finalized as of Tuesday, details about exact amounts are still subject to some change.
Senate Bill 2371: Provide between $16 million and $25 million to help with hospital residency and fellowship programs, as well as a nursing/allied health community college grant program. The bill aims to help retain doctors — the majority of doctors remain in the places they do their residencies — and increase Mississippi’s nursing workforce. The bill passed in the Senate on Monday and the House on Tuesday.
Senate Bill 2372: Establish the Mississippi Hospital Sustainability Grant Program, which would provide extra money to aid the state’s struggling hospitals. The Senate’s bill establishes rules and regulations for the grant program, while House Bill 271 will fund the program. Lawmakers decided Monday that they’d send $104 million to hospitals, up from $80 million the Senate approved earlier in the session. The details of the grant program laid out in the Senate bill were released and passed on Tuesday.
Senate Bill 2373: Provide $6 million for a nurse loan repayment program, to aid the state’s substantial shortage. Mississippi’s nurse turnover and vacancy rates are at their highest in at least a decade. The bill was passed and signed into law by Gov. Tate Reeves in early March.
Senate Bill 2323: Amend current laws to allow the consolidation of hospitals. Hosemann previously said the state’s health care system needs to be revamped to be more financially viable. The bill has passed and awaits Reeves’ signature or veto by March 30.
Mississippi Today’s Geoff Pender contributed to this report.
The murder of Billy Dover spread quickly through Quitman County, a rural stretch situated in the northwest Mississippi Delta, where most of the residents are Black and earning below the poverty line.
As the afternoon of July 3, 1998, wore on, the news of what happened at the Western Auto Store traveled four miles up Highway 3 from Lambert, where it was located, to Marks, where William Davis, then 17, was waiting in line to buy a drink at Fred’s Dollar Store. William and his best friend, 19-year-old Andre Smith, had stopped on their way to Batesville to get a Band-Aid for Andre’s bleeding hand.
“Have you heard? Someone went and killed Billy Dover,” the woman behind the cash register said as she rang up their items.
Bells went off in William’s head. Andre turned to look at William, but no one said anything. Killed him? William had not heard that. This is crazy, he thought to himself. I didn’t expect for none of this to happen.
At age 13, William had moved from the farmland of Vance, Mississippi, to the small town of Lambert, after his dad, a tractor driver, had died suddenly of cardiac arrest. The highway sign welcoming people into Lambert boasts the slogan: “A City of Hope.”
William’s mom worked night shifts at a nursing home to support her six children, andWilliam, the youngest, was often left home alone. His first year living in Lambert, William watched the streets from his porch: Kids were smoking and selling weed up the block; older men were smoking crack behind his house. After school, he would sit from 3-10 p.m. on the porch of his yellow and green craftsman-style house at the corner of Darby Avenue — Lambert’s main road — and the highway, and watch the streets. At 14 years old, he joined them. An older neighborhood kid handed William an ounce of weed and demanded he return with money. William started selling weed, then crack, which provided easier and faster cash.
Andre, a neighbor from Vance, moved up to Lambert, too. He was two years older, part of a gang, and known for getting into fights. William’s mom asked him to stop hanging out with Andre. Instead, in ninth grade, William stopped going to school. Every day, he would meet up with Andre to smoke weed, sell crack, and gamble. Often, they would gather outside the Western Auto Store, which was at the center of town.
When William had met up with Andre outside the Western Auto Store on July 3, 1998, he was mad. They wanted to go shopping for the Fourth of July in Batesville, but last night, Andre lost the moneyWilliam had lent him in a game of dice.
The Western Auto Store was a neighborhood institution, as was Billy Dover, the white 65-year-old man who owned and ran it. Customers would come into the store to buy materials for their bike or car or household appliances, to sit in recliners and watch TV with Dover or even to borrow some money, which he was generous about lending. William and his family, like most people in the area, knew Dover well. Dover had a large family of 11 sons and daughters, including stepchildren, and acted like a father figure to the town. The Davis family would go to Dover’s store even when they lived in Vance. Dover put the training wheels on William’s first bike.
Standing outside the store on July 3, 1998, arguing with William about money, Andre came up with a plan.
“He told me he had an idea of how to get him some money. I’m like, ‘Go ahead. I’m going to go along with it,’’’ William said.
Andre had a plan to steal from Dover. Andre ended up killing him.
Eight years after the murder of Billy Dover, and eight years after being picked up by the police, William Davis sat in his Unit 32 cell of the Mississippi State Penitentiary and began to write down the details of his case. It was 2006; he was now 25 years old, but he still didn’t understand how he had ended up here.
Unit 32 was a notorious lockdown facility in the state — inmates let out of their cells for only one hour per day — and had made state headlines for its inhumane conditions, outbreaks of violence, and reports of inmate deaths. William had witnessed a friend get stabbed. Two men attacked William with a weapon, and he received a disciplinary charge, later expunged from his record, for fighting back in self-defense. A lawsuit put forth by the American Civil Liberties Union shut down the unit in 2010, but in 2020 reports surfaced of inmates being housed there again.
A ward in Unit 32, Timothy Morris watched as William’s mom cried to him during a visit. Timothy approached William after and asked him: “What are you going to do to make your mom proud? She’s cried enough with you being in this place.”
William went back to his cell and started to write, thinking that maybe if he understood why he was in here, he could find his way out of here. He had 21 bullet points detailing what he remembered happened between the morning of the crime and the day of his arrest. Titling the section, “Specific Facts Not Within Petitioner’s Personal Knowledge,” William wrote down what he didn’t understand. How was he convicted of capital murder if he never killed anyone?
In the unit, away from the violence, there was a group of guys “practicing litigation,” as William puts it. They were ordering books from the law library, comparing their cases, and filing post-conviction appeals. Many of the guys in the legal circle at the prison were also fighting murder cases, so they poured over legal scholarship together, trying to break down their cases and to help each other write their own motions. William started sitting with them and learning about the law. At night, he would leave order slips under his cell for new books and cases from the law library. The next day, copies would show up at his door, and he would consult his legal dictionary to understand the terminology.
“I didn’t understand until I started doing research on cases, filing paperwork, and studying law,” he said. That’s when William learned about the felony murder rule, and how it was operating in Mississippi. “That’s when I started to understand.”
Under the felony murder rule, if someone is killed during the commission of a felony, those who participated, even tangentially, are able to be charged with murder, without planning, intending, or committing it.
Signs welcome people to Lambert, Miss., in Quitman County. Credit: Elena DeBre/MCIR at Mississippi Today
Standing outside the Western Auto Store on the morning of July 3, 1998, Andre gave William instructions: Enter the store and purchase a hose for a washing machine. Once inside, William watched as Dover cut the hose for him and confirmed it was the right one. William brought the hose back out to Andre.
Later, District Attorney Laurence Mellen would say that this was how “the defendants made preparation for the crime,” a document from the Quitman County Circuit Court reads, “by having entered the store, making themselves aware of whether the victim Mr. Dover was alone.”
Andre went inside the store under the pretense of returning the hose. Dover said that once it was cut, the hose couldn’t be exchanged. Andre argued. “It escalated from there,” William said. “I don’t know if that was the actual reason for what transpired. But I do know that when that happened, I left.”
In court, Mellen detailed what he asserts happened inside: “Davis went to the cash register, tried to get in, while Lushun, Andre Lushun Smith, had taken Mr. Dover to the back of the building on the pretense of buying something back there, assaulted him there in the back, and beat him the back of the store. The State would prove that Davis left a fingerprint on the cash register in the front while the assault was being made in the back. Smith assaulted Mr. Dover with a bicycle pump and repeatedly beat on him,” Mellen said. “They did take the wallet from Mr. Dover, Mr. Billy Dover, which had money in it.”
Dover survived for a few minutes after Andre’s beating, court documents report, but was discovered dead by Dover’s son on the floor of his store.
Davis said that when he heard Andre and Billy Dover fighting, he left. The next time William saw Andre, he had blood on his shirt. He thought to himself: “Ah, man, let me get away from this. Let me get away from this.”
Andre handed him cash. He asked Andre to change his clothes, but he didn’t ask Andre what happened. Hours later, when the woman behind the cash register at Fred’s Dollar Store confirmed to William that Dover had indeed been murdered, he was just as shocked as her. “I didn’t think he would go that far. I never thought it would get to that point,” he said.
After Andre was picked up by the police and taken into questioning, the Smith family came to William’s house and demanded to know what they did. William replied with the line he would later start using on everyone: “I can’t speak on what he did or didn’t do. If I leave a place, if I remove myself from a situation, how can I know what’s going on there?”
When the police came and took William into questioning, he tried to get them to understand that he wasn’t present during the murder. If he never even saw the murder, how could he have done it? “I hadn’t done anything. I didn’t do this. I didn’t murder anyone. That was my whole thing, I was trying to convey to them that I murdered no one,” he said.
But what William himself didn’t understand at the time was that, under the felony murder rule, it didn’t matter if he had killed anyone or not.
“To be honest, the trouble with felony murder is because there is such a wide range of culpability, that allows you to go to jail forever,” said Walter Boone, a Clarksdale lawyer who later worked with William on his case. “Were you just the pick-up driver, or did you go in? Did you participate in the robbery? Did you know about the murder in advance and plan it and participate in it? The felony murder does not distinguish between the levels of culpability on that.”
The felony murder rule is enacted in 44 states across the country, with charges and sentences at varying levels of severity. Recent legal reform in California has limited felony murder to the death of an on-duty police officer, the direct killing of someone, or intentional aiding and abetting of a murder. In some states, like Colorado, felony murder is considered second-degree murder, reducing the penalty and sentencing time. But in Mississippi, felony murder falls under the capital murder statute. Those convicted of capital murder are either sentenced to death, life without parole, or life with parole—but only if the crime was committed before July 1, 1994.
In Mississippi, “Capital murders are disproportionately felony murders,” State Public Defender André de Gruy explains. A review of available data, provided by the internal system in the Mississippi Administrative Office of Courts, reveals there have been 301 capital murder sentences given across the state between Jan. 1, 1994, and Sept. 23, 2022. Of those capital murder sentences, 226 were for felony murder cases.
For the state to convict someone of capital murder, de Gruy said, “they don’t have to prove the murder, they only have to prove the underlying felony, or the intent to do the underlying felony. They don’t have to prove an intent to kill.”
“The felony murder rule in Mississippi is very broad. They still allow a non-triggerman to get the death sentence,” de Gruy said.
As a result, individuals at the very periphery of a killing are being trapped with the same charges, and potential sentences, as the murderers themselves.
De Gruy pointed to a 1989 case as an example. A 15-year-old, Vincent Harris, sat on the handlebars of his co-defendant’s bike as they rode to a convenience store. Before they arrived, Harris jumped off the bike and waited by the side of the road, as his co-defendant, Ron Foster, continued to the market. Foster attempted to take money from the cash register and ended up shooting the clerk, but Harris, who was miles away at the time, was still charged initially with capital murder.
Champions of the felony murder rule often refer to the deterrence theory as support, legal scholar Kat Albrecht stated in her paper “Data Transparency, Compounding Bias, and the Felony Murder Rule.” When examining a case in Illinois, she wrote that the state’s attorney argued that the “felony murder rule deters felony commission because offenders know that if something goes wrong, and someone dies, they will be charged with murder regardless of their intent or who actually pulled the proverbial trigger.” This, in theory, should lead to less crime, but in practice falls apart as offenders, especially juveniles, often aren’t aware of the technicalities of the law — or thinking in such terms when committing crimes that they do not believe will involve a death.
“Well-established brain development science shows that children and teenagers are less able to perceive risk or anticipate consequences than adults,” said Jody Kent Levy of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, according to a report by the Restore Justice advocacy group.
In his work, de Gruy said he has seen some patterns connecting felony murder cases and juvenile cases anecdotally.
“Among the juvenile cases, you’re more likely to see a multiple defendant case,” de Gruy said. “Let’s say you see an argument at a gas station that escalates to a shooting. If there’s one person involved, it’s usually someone a bit older. If there’s a car full of people, it’s probably younger people,” he said.
In cases with multiple defendants, which are more likely to involve juveniles, there is also a higher likelihood that some of those people will have only tangential relationships to the crime at hand. If someone is shot during a crime, and the getaway car is full of young people, they could all be charged with capital murder in Mississippi under the felony murder rule.
When William heard he wasbeing charged with capital murder, he said, “I hit the floor.” At the time, in July 1998, the Supreme Court had not yet ruled on Roper v. Simmons, which outlawed the death penalty for juveniles. William’s youth — his developing brain, his potential for rehabilitation, his susceptibility to peer pressure — would not even be a consideration in his sentencing. If he went to trial, the state was going to pursue the death penalty.
Charles E. Webster, now the judge in the 11th Circuit Court District, was William’s court-appointed lawyer. He encouraged William to plead guilty — his life was on the line. But William didn’t want to give up his dignity. “I can’t say I’m guilty of killing this man when I know I didn’t,” he said.
Webster went to William’s mom and explained what was at stake: If they committed to a plea deal, it would save his life. W“My heart fell in my stomach. It was devastating for me. I couldn’t believe it,” Ernestine Davis said.
She went to William crying, “My baby. I don’t want to see that happen.” For his mom, William said, he agreed to enter a guilty plea. He would be sentenced to life in prison, without parole.
The details of William’s case have become blurry in Webster’s memory over the past two decades, but, like the other felony murder cases he dealt with in his career, Webster said, “most of the time, these are tough calls.”
After reviewing William’s court documents, he remembered what guided his thinking on the case: “The evidence seemed pretty strong,” he wrote — meaning that documents show William had entered the store prior to the robbery and his fingerprint was found on the cash register.
“Guilt or innocence may not have been much of an issue. As such, the best outcome may have been simply guaranteeing the death penalty was off the table. It may be that looking at it 23 years later avoiding a chance of the death penalty doesn’t seem that significant; I assure you that when it’s you that the state is trying to put you to death — it’s a big deal,” Webster wrote.
Looking back on his guilty plea 23 years later, William feels it was a big deal that he didn’t get to have a voice in court: “I didn’t even have an opportunity to fight for my freedom,” he said. “I’m looked upon now as a murderer.”
On May 12, 2000, William appeared in Quitman County Circuit Court for his sentencing.
“You’ve heard the prosecutor tell the Court what his office recommends as to your sentence: life without parole. Do you understand that?” Circuit Judge Elzy Smith asked him.
William nodded his head up and down.
“Answer up, please,” Julia Phillips, the court reporter said.
“Yes, I do,” he responded.
William Davis sits Nov. 21, 2022, on the front stoop of his family’s former house in Lambert, Miss, Credit: Elena DeBre/MCIR at Mississippi Today
For weeks, William spent his nights awake writing in his cell. He moved from writing down the details of his case — those which he understood, and those which he didn’t — to formulate an appeal for his case. Working with Frank and Charlie, friends who also had murder cases, William learned the law.
“I put my idle time into legal work, reading the Georgetown Law Journal, ordering cases every week,” he said.
William began penning a new section, titled: “Legal Argument.” On June 12, 2006, he submitted his motion to vacate his sentence. Two years later, he received a note back from the court: His appeal was rejected.
“That could have been a demoralizing point,” William reflected. But, around the same time, he had received another letter in the mail. Someone was interested in his case.
Marie Satterwhite wasn’t a lawyer, but she had personal experience with trouble coming from “being with the wrong person at the wrong time,” as she puts it. Her son had hung out with teenagers in the street gangs of Quitman County. He passed a bag of drugs from the seller to an officer disguised as a buyer — and was sent to prison. Satterwhite shared her son’s story when giving a talk at First United Pentecostal Church in Marks.
“I was telling the church that no matter how you raise your children, if they get in with the wrong crowd, you never know what the other person is going to do,” she said. Or how that will impact your kid.
After her talk, William’s mother, Ernestine, approached her and shared William’s story. “I didn’t know that other mothers were going through the same thing that I was going through,” Satterwhite said.
Satterwhite wanted to hear from William himself and, in 2008, wrote him a letter asking about his case. He sent her the write up he had spent the weeks of 2006 forming — the facts, the questions, the legal argument and appeal. When she read his pages, she felt filled with a responsibility — she had to try to get him out of prison. Satterwhite went to every lawyer she knew in the Quitman County area and asked them if they could take on William’s case.
“I left the papers there and I gave them my number to get back in touch,” she said. Each one read the papers and called her. “They all said, ‘He’s got a case, but we’re booked,’” she recalled.
Satterwhite didn’t lose faith. She decided to turn to her church for help. She brought William’s papers to her church pastor, and together they anointed his papers with oil and prayed over his papers. “The whole church stood up, and we all agreed he was going to get out,” she said.
Satterwhite led talks at a youth group every month at the Blue Mountain Church. With no more lawyers to share William’s story with, she started to share it with the 16-year-old boys in the group. She would write William with questions about how he got into his situation, how he survived it, how he stayed strong. And William would respond with notes she could weave into her talks at the church.
“I wanted to write home the fact that your environment doesn’t have to define you. Anyone that wants to be something, you have to learn your behavior. If you have time, effort, and the opportunity, you can be anything you choose to be,” he said.
William admitted: “You make mistakes in life.” He didn’t want them to do the same. Still, now, mothers come up to Satterwhite and thank her for sharing William’s story with the group and for getting their sons on the right track.
While William was initially disappointed that no lawyers or court had interest in his case, he was resolved to continue doing the legal work himself. “People came into my life and blessed me with the energy to move forward, the energy to persevere,” he said, referring to Satterwhite. “I then, in turn, tried to elevate myself. I used books, papers, the law. That gave me a focus to try and get freedom.” He continued to study cases, to read the Annual Review of Criminal Procedure to see what new laws had passed, to exchange ideas in his legal circle.
In the spring of 2013, Timmie Hubert, who was in his group, heard some news. A lawyer had contacted him about trying to vacate his juvenile life without parole sentence based on a 2012 Supreme Court decision, Miller v. Alabama, that sentencing a juvenile to life without parole violated the Eighth Amendment.
“I thought man that should be me. I went and looked it up and studied it,” William said. He found out juveniles previously sentenced to life without parole could have their case considered for resentencing to life with parole. First, defendants had to petition to have their case heard. Then, a judge would review the case and decide if the defendant would be resentenced to life with parole or not.
A statewide effort, composed of nonprofits, the Office of the State Public Defender and private law firms, formed and worked to locate incarcerated people who would be eligible to have their cases reviewed under Miller. Eighty-five people were identified, data from the Mississippi State Public Defender’s office reveals. “They are almost all felony murder cases,” André de Gruy said.
Before William was even notified of his eligibility — he filed his own Miller petition pro se to the Quitman County Circuit Court on June 21, 2013, using a model pleading Jake Howard from the MacArthur Center for Justice had published. The state effort took notice, and Walter Boone was assigned to his case pro-bono. “And that’s when everything started picking up,” Boone said. He began to prepare William’s case for a judge.
William awaited his hearing with other Miller candidates in Unit 30 of the Mississippi State Penitentiary. As those around him started seeing results, William grew hopeful. His friend Ricky Bell got resentenced to life with parole eligibility. He helped others in the unit file their pro se motions to get their cases heard. But, as four years passed, and he still hadn’t been seen in front of a judge, William started to worry.
The process of resentencing under Miller is difficult. Around a quarter of their cases were denied parole.
Boone encountered these difficulties when working on his cases. Overburdened judges are reluctant to vacate a criminal conviction that has already been sentenced by the court. Even if the crime was committed by a child, that doesn’t necessarily garner sympathy. Boone said that when judges get Miller cases in their hands, he speculates that many think: “Why are we spending time on this?” Of the 63 cases that have been heard since the passing of Miller, as many as 17 defendants have been refused parole eligibility.
Judges have a lot of discretion in Miller cases – and just have to note that Miller factors were considered in order to make a resentencing decision. Some judges view Miller cases as they would a parole decision – instead of an eligibility one, those working on the state effort noticed – making a life with parole sentence harder to obtain. Yet, even if a Miller case is decided favorably, the defendant still has to apply to be granted parole.
On Feb. 14, 2017, Judge Albert B. Smith released his decision on the Miller case for William Davis: He would be resentenced to life in prison, with the eligibility for parole.
“There is no evidence before the Court that Mr. Davis killed or intended to kill the victim in this case,” the order and judgment states. “Mr. Davis argues that he is not one of the ’uncommon’ and ‘rare’ juvenile homicide offenders who may be sentenced to life without eligibility for parole.” The Court agreed.
“Felony murder law has been the law for a long time. I think everybody who looks at it would say that it produces unjust results,” Boone said. “But the idea behind Miller is that, even if they made an evil choice at age 16, even if it was intentionally evil, that’s a kid and that kid is going to change and grow.”
William said the decision “made a world of difference” in his outlook. The possibility of freedom was, for the first time, within reach. “Things were finally happening,” he said.
William still had to address the Parole Board. He would have to present a case to the board that shows he had a support network and future plans after prison.
The Davis family wrote letters. “William was not a problem child,” Cedric Williams, his older brother, wrote. “We really hate this happened to Mr. Billy Dover. He really was a good man. I believe that William has paid his time.”William’s cousin, Lasandra Booker wrote about William: “One thing I know of this young man (is) he knows how to change for (the) better.”
William found a new motivation after being granted parole eligibility. He took college classes, including psychology, which taught him that people react in unpredictable ways under fearful circumstances and gave him a new perspective on the behavior of Andre Smith that day in the Western Auto. He also started teaching. “I wanted to learn how to actually help people. If I see something going on, I want to know how to approach it, diffuse it,” he said. “Because guys can lose their life.” And, to an extent, William feels like he did.
“Three people lost their lives pretty much. Big chunks of it. Billy Dover lost his life. Andre lost his life. And I lost a portion of my life that I can never get back,” he said. Andre Smith, who was 19at the time of the crime and not eligible for parole consideration under Miller, is serving a sentence of life without parole at the Marshall County Correctional Facility.
On Dec. 29, 2021, though, William got the rest of his life back: He was granted parole.
In a matchingblue sweatsuit, provided by the state, William walked out of prison into the winter Mississippi air. Everything he wanted on his first day of freedom was so small: a bath, a pedicure, a hamburger. His mom and brother, Cedric, picked him up, drove straight through Lambert, and continued the 25-minute drive up the highway to his brother’s new house in Batesville.
Still, William was not quite free. In the court of public opinion, he said, he will forever be seen as a murderer. “This is what I’ll be for the rest of my life,” he said. “A whole family hates me – they don’t even know me – but they think I killed their loved one.”
The Dover family, who had advocated against William’s parole eligibility during his Millerhearing, did not want to comment.
Now, William lives in Horn Lake, an hour north of Lambert, by the border of Tennessee, and works a factory job with spices that make him sneeze. He tries to fill his free time, after work, with pottery and candle-making classes. He craves a schedule, and routine. He had developed that in prison. At any time, he can still say what is happening on the inside.
On a Monday evening in late November, when eating Alaskan snow crab legs at a Red Pier by his house, he looked at his watch and said, “It’s canteen night,” referring to the time where inmates can go buy items at the convenience store. Often, this night would turn violent, especially if someone didn’t have any money to spend, he reflected.
William’s good fortune is rare. In Mississippi, there are five Miller-eligible felony murder cases in which the defendant was not the triggerman in the murder. William Davis is the only one out on parole. Two have been resentenced to life without, one is awaiting his Miller hearing, and the other, Alexander Hymes, has been given parole eligibility but isn’t out yet. Around 15 guys, still on the inside, often call William and ask him for advice. On the outside, he and six paroled juvenile lifers keep in touch regularly, offering support and providing updates on jobs and family. They call their group Life After Life.
Only an empty lot remains in Lambert, Miss., at the site of the Western Auto Store where Billy Dover was killed on July 3, 1998. There’s no bank or club in town, just some graffiti that reads, “Club Good Times” on an abandoned brick building Credit: Elena DeBre/MCIR at Mississippi Today
Almost a year after his release, William, now 42, stood outside his old yellow and green craftsman style house in Lambert. He sat down on the porch, and watched Darby Avenue, just as he used to when he was 13, before he joined the streets, before the incident at the Western Auto Store, before his capital murder conviction. There is a group of guys still smoking crack behind his house. People driving by honk and wave at him still. But, so much has changed. His house is empty and shuttered with a “No Trespassing” sign. The Western Auto Store is gone — only an empty lot remains. There’s no bank or club in town, just some graffiti that reads, “Club Good Times” on an abandoned brick building. As he walked his old path from his house to where the Western Auto Store once stood, every third car or so that passed by him honked. Around every fifth car stopped to pull over and talk to him.
“I don’t come down here. I really don’t. I try to stay out of this,” William said.
A police officer, Veronica Survillion, got out of her patrol car to give William a hug.
“When nobody believed, I believed in him,” she said. “You can basically go to prison for life for basically anything around here.”
William nodded but also laughed. As both a felony murder defendant and a Miller defendant, he was well aware of a paradoxical truth: while the legal system had locked him up for life, it had also set him free to a new one.
“I’m forever grateful,” William said, but then reflected, “I’ll forever be looked at as a murderer.”
Elena DeBre filed this report in collaboration with the Yale Investigative Reporting lab at part of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting Immersion Program for up-and-coming journalists.
Tuesday, March 28 is Mississippi Today’s seventh anniversary. That marks seven years of digging deeper for the stories that matter most. Our founding mission was to create a trustworthy news source that is free for all — no paywalls, no paid subscriptions. Through the years, we have helped readers navigate yearly legislative sessions, voting seasons, a pandemic, a water crisis, the biggest welfare fraud in the state, and more.
Thanks to our talented reporters and dedicated readers, we have grown in every way over the last seven years. We revere the honor of being the state’s flagship nonprofit newsroom, and one of the state’s first online-only publications. I’m proud of the accountability reporting you’ve come to expect from Mississippi Today, and the way we’ve grown beyond “words on a screen” to cut through the noise.
Today, we have a committed team that brings you trustworthy news not only through our website, but through our app, texting line, social media and community events. We encourage two-way communication with our readers through our MT Asks series and Reddit AMAs. Your information needs are our top priority as we develop reader guides to break down complex issues and FAQs to answer your top questions.
Our mission has always been to shape our journalism around our readers’ information needs and expand our coverage to give you the most thorough reporting. Our reporters go out each day and dig deep into the issues and stories that affect Mississippians across the state. The investigative coverage that develops from these efforts puts a critical lens on state leaders and the decisions they make on behalf of Mississippi residents.
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Mississippi lawmakers missed a Monday night deadline to complete their budget work and now will have to extend the regular session or wait for Gov. Tate Reeves to call a special session to fund public education and other key agencies.
Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, told House members late Monday afternoon there were about 25 budget bills where work had not been completed to reach agreement between legislative leaders ahead of a midnight deadline. He said House leaders will attempt on Tuesday to garner the two-thirds majority vote needed to extend the session for “one or two days” in order to meet the Mississippi Constitution requirement that all appropriations and revenue bills be passed before the final five days of the session.
The session is currently scheduled to end Sunday. Lawmakers could vote to extend the session on paper but still finish by Sunday’s scheduled final day.
At the heart of the missed deadline is a fight between House and Senate leaders over the budget bill for K-12 schools.
The Senate voted to make small adjustments to the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, the formula that provides the state’s share of funds to local school districts, and fully fund it for the first time since the 2007-2008 school year.
House leaders, though, have rejected the Senate plan, saying they do not want to put any additional funds in the MAEP formula. The full membership of the House has not been allowed to vote on the Senate plan.
House leaders have said they wanted to provide specific earmarks for education, but not provide additional funds for MAEP, which pays the state’s share for the basic needs of school districts, such as teacher salaries, textbooks and transportation.
While agreement eluded lawmakers on education and other budget bills, many of the more than 100 budget bills have already been passed.
Lawmakers agreed on spending $104 million to bail out the states struggling hospitals.
Another bill – funding the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks – provides $13 million for the LeFluer’s Bluff Education and Tourism Complex in Jackson “in coordination” with the Mississippi Children’s Museum.
Last year Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed a similar appropriation that included a golf course in the LeFluer’s Bluff area. The governor said then that the state did not need to be in the business of building golf courses.
Supporters at the time said the project included various improvements in an area where multiple museums and playgrounds and other recreational facilities are located.
The bill this year does not say whether the project includes a golf course, but said the money is being appropriated “to provide tourism, education and recreational activities that contribute to community well-being.”
A special grand jury hearing was held at the Lafayette County Courthouse Monday for Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., the Ole Miss graduate charged with murdering Jimmie “Jay” Lee, Mississippi Today has confirmed.
Lee was a queer, Black student at the University of Mississippi known for performing at a local drag night. His death has shocked Oxford’s tight-knit LGBTQ+ community and sparked a movement called “Justice for Jay Lee” which wants Herrington convicted.
The grand jury hearing comes about three months after Herrington was released from jail on a $250,000 bond. He was charged with Lee’s murder in July 2022.
In Mississippi, grand jury hearings are secret. It is unclear when the grand jury will return a decision, but it could be as soon as Tuesday. A text and call to Steven Jubera, the Lafayette County Assistant District Attorney assigned to the case, was not returned.
This hearing, the final step in a criminal investigation, marks a critical juncture in Herrington’s case. The grand jury could either vote to indict Herrington, meaning the case could proceed to trial, or return what is called a “no true bill” if there is not enough information to indict.
This became public on Sunday morning when Justice for Jay Lee posted on Instagram that Herrington “will be appearing in court for indictment” this week. Braylyn Johnson, a friend of Lee’s and one of the group’s main organizers, said Justice for Jay Lee learned the grand jury would be meeting through a “whistleblower.”
The post called for people to protest at the courthouse to show Herrington that Lee and his family have support in Oxford.
“We need ALL of our supporters to make it here to rally with us for JUSTICE!,” the post read.
That night, the Justice for Jay Lee page received a direct message from the Oxford Police Department’s Instagram page.
OPD’s Instagram message to Justice for Jay Lee. Credit: Courtesy Justice for Jay Lee
“We appreciate your steadfast promotion for Jay Lee,” the message read. “But please hear us out. This is a special grand jury session just for this case due to the amount of evidence. Herrington WILL NOT be at the court house (sic). Disturbances could cause us not to be able to present to the grand jury. It could also lead to a request for a change of venue and we do not want that.”
“We have worked hard on this case and do not want to do anything to jeopardize it,” the message concluded.
OPD Captain Hildon Sessums, who sent the message, told Mississippi Today he was intending to warn Justice for Jay Lee that protesting could jeopardize the case. Sessums said he also wanted people to know that Herrington would not be at the courthouse.
“We’re never going to try to stymie anybody’s First Amendment right,” Sessums said. “We just want people to realize that some actions have consequences, and the last thing we want to do is to do anything to jeopardize this case. We try to run everything by the book.”
Sessums added that OPD isn’t trying to be secretive. Justice for Jay Lee has repeatedly called on the department to release more information about the case — specifically more details on the possible whereabouts of Lee’s body, which still has not been found more than 260 days after he went missing.
“I just don’t think they understand all the logistics and what we’re doing and maybe that’s on us for not being as transparent as they would like us to be,” he said. “But again, this case has a lot of moving parts and we’re doing everything we can to get a guilty verdict.”
Herrington’s attorney, Kevin Horan, was not at the grand jury hearing on Monday. A state representative, Horan was at the Capitol working on a bill when reached by a Mississippi Today reporter on Monday afternoon. He said he was not expecting to hear anything about the case.
“I’m fixin’ to do a bill in about 30 seconds,” he said.
It is unclear who testified before the grand jury hearing, though Johnson said that she spoke with Jay Lee’s mom, Stephanie Lee, as she was leaving the courthouse.
At a preliminary hearing last fall, an OPD detective presented evidence obtained from Herrington’s computer and cell phone. That included Snapchat messages sent between Herrington and Lee the night that Lee went missing, and a Google search that Herrington made as Lee was coming over to his house that said, “how long does it take to strangle someone gabby petito.”
A few years ago, I wrote a book titled “Chainsaws & Casseroles.” The title came from a short story about a disgruntled meteorologist who came home to find his hometown destroyed by a tornado. He soon learned the power of love and healing by the people who showed up to help after the storm. I’ve always said that when there is a storm, before you can get out of the rubble, there will be a church van full of people with chainsaws and casseroles. They’ll cut the tree off your house and then they will feed you. That’s how we roll in Mississippi. It may because we know that eventually it will be our turn to need help. Or we’ve been already been on the receiving end of that help. We’ve seen that all across Mississippi the last few days. It’s when we’re at our best.
Tornadoes ripping through Mississippi Friday night left at least 21 dead, dozens injured and a trail of destruction throughout the Delta and into the state’s northern region.
As the eyes of the nation turn to the Magnolia State, many readers have asked how they can help residents affected by the storms. We’ve compiled a resource page that includes information about how to give to organizations working to help Mississippians.
How to donate
Remember, experts routinely encourage donors to research organizations before giving money, especially in times of crisis. Local advocates and others who spoke with Mississippi Today, however, vouched for the organizations listed below.
Volunteer Mississippi is sharing updates on local donation centers — mostly for supplies and clothing, not cash donations — on its Facebook page.
United Way of West Central Mississippi is collecting donations of water at their office in Vicksburg. It is also accepting monetary donations on its chapter website, and organization leaders ask you specify “Rolling Fork” in the donation notes.
Additionally, GoFundMe created a dedicated page for the recent Mississippi storms.
How to volunteer
If you are looking to volunteer time or resources, Mississippi Emergency Management Agency officials ask that you do not self-deploy but instead volunteer in coordination with Volunteer Mississippi. Click here to visit the Volunteer Mississippi website.
Shelters for victims
National Guard Armory/Civic Center located at 19719 US Highway 61 in Rolling Fork.
Humphreys County Multipurpose Building located 417 Silver City Road in Belzoni.
Old Amory National Guard Building located at 101 S 9th St. in Amory.
The American Red Cross, The Salvation Army, and other nonprofit organizations will continue to offer food at these sites.
Government assistance
FEMA has made available federal assistance for affected individuals in Carroll, Humphreys, Monroe, and Sharkey counties. Individuals must visit www.DisasterAssistance.gov or call 1-800-621-3362
The Mississippi Department of Human Services has allowed SNAP households that lost food to receive replacement food if they submit a MDHS-EA-508 form at their local MDHS office within 10 days of the disaster.
The Mississippi Division of Medicaid has enacted a state of emergency that allows affected Medicaid patients to receive early refills and additional prescriptions above the standard monthly limits.
Legal assistance
The Mississippi Center for Justice offers “free legal services to the survivors who need an advocate to help them fight for a fair recovery following the aftermath of these devastating storms.”
Help local journalists
The Mississippi Press Association has established two separate funds to assist local journalism efforts in the state. It launched a GoFundMe page to assist the Deer Creek Pilot newspaper in Rolling Fork, and it reestablished its Local Journalism Relief Fund to assist journalists and outlets affected by the storms.
Brian Jones, superintendent of the Amory School District, described the situation as “very, very overwhelming.” He said schools will be closed all week in the district and the goal is to have students back by next Monday. Amory High School was the only school building to sustain damage in one part of the campus, allowing it to be used for instruction once schools reopen.
Jones said the district’s school buses had all the windows blown out by the storm, which they are working to repair, adding that they have been in communication with other districts about borrowing school buses. He also said the athletic facilities are gone and students will not be playing any sports for the remainder of the year while the district works to rebuild.
“The community has rallied around itself with everybody trying to help everybody,” Jones said.
No buildings were damaged in the Winona-Montgomery Consolidated School District, according to Superintendent Teresa Jackson, but the district and much of the surrounding community are currently without power.
Jackson said the estimate from Entergy was that power would be restored by 10 p.m. Tuesday night, but said she considers this optimistic. She added she is concerned about food access since the one grocery store in Winona is running on generators and most other stores are without power.
“We want to get our schools open as soon as possible so that we can serve breakfast and lunch, have mental health resources, and just get back into a routine,” Jackson said. “Kids need routine.”
Jackson said they hope to be back in school before the end of the week. She also expressed her appreciation for the fellow superintendents, state leaders, and local companies who have checked on them and offered assistance.
“When there are tragic events like this, the state of Mississippi really wraps their arms around those people,” she said. “That is why I love Mississippi so much, because we take care of each other, we care about each other, and we’re going to reach out and say ‘How can we help?’”
A spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Education said it has been in continued contact with all affected districts, and is working with federal, state and local agencies to administer support services. State Superintendent Robert Taylor visited the communities most severely affected on Monday.
The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said the New Albany School District and Humphreys County School District, also in the path of the tornadoes, were operational on Monday, which the New Albany Superintendent Lance Evans confirmed to Mississippi Today. Evans added that the damage to facilities in his district was extremely minimal compared to other districts.
Superintendents of the South Delta School District and the Carroll County School District could not be reached for comment. According to the Mississippi Department of Education, school buildings in South Delta sustained roof damage but are not destroyed and Carroll County school buildings were undamaged but are currently without power.
Hank Bounds, the former state superintendent of education during Hurricane Katrina, said for the most severely affected districts, reopening schools is secondary to ensuring their students and staff are safe and cared for. Bounds said he has offered his assistance through state leaders to districts trying to figure out their disaster recovery plans, but has not been in contact with any yet.
“My guess is they are doing nothing but thinking about the welfare of their people right now, as they should be,” he said.
No colleges or universities in the state appear to have sustained damages.
On Saturday evening, Mississippi Valley State University in Leflore County posted a message from its president, Jerryl Briggs, on social media. The campus “avoided a severe blow,” Briggs wrote, but the families of students, faculty and staff were affected. To support those community members, the university was organizing a community service event.
“Our hearts ached as we watched the news coverage and have since heard of the reports of those who lost their lives, property, and so much more,” Briggs wrote.
The Senate on Monday, at Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann’s request, voted to revive a measure it killed last week that would restore voters’ right to sidestep the Legislature and put issues on a statewide ballot.
“At my request, the Senate passed a suspension resolution to revive the initiative process (Monday) morning,” Hosemann said in a statement. “House leadership has also expressed a desire to continue working on this issue. If the House agrees to this suspension resolution, the Senate will again address legislation providing Mississippians with direct input on policy. We are hopeful to come to a final agreement before (the legislative session ends).”
As the 2023 legislative session enters what’s scheduled to be its final few days, the House would have to follow suit with a two-thirds vote to suspend rules and revive the ballot initiative measure. Then the two chambers would have to come to agreement on a final version.
But House Speaker Philip Gunn said he would need more information before deciding whether the House would take up the Senate proposal to suspend the rules to pass an initiative proposal. He said the House had passed two initiative proposals – one last year and another this year – and both had been rejected by Senate leaders.
“We are clear on our position,” Gunn said. Unless the position in the Senate had changed on the initiative, Gunn asked, “What would be accomplished?” by taking up the rules suspension resolution.
In general, Gunn said he does not like such rules suspension resolutions because they could be used to try to revive other bills that had died earlier in the legislative process.
Citing irreconcilable differences between House and Senate positions, Senate Accountability Efficiency and Transparency Chairman John Polk, R-Hattiesburg, let the ballot initiative measure die with a deadline without a full Senate vote last week. A similar measure died in the Legislature without a final vote last year, after the state Supreme Court in 2021 shot down the ballot initiative right Mississippi voters had for three decades.
Hosemann last week said he was in favor of restoring the right — which is popular with voters according to recent polling — but that he lets his chairmen, such as Polk, make their own decisions.
The death of the bill drew bipartisan criticism, including from Hosemann’s challenger in the lieutenant governor GOP primary Sen. Chris McDaniel. If it stands, the bill’s death is likely to be an issue with voters in this year’s statewide elections.
Many Mississippians were angry when the state’s high court stripped voters of this right in 2021. This was in a ruling on a medical marijuana initiative voters had overwhelmingly passed, taking matters in hand after lawmakers had dallied for years on the issue. Legislative leaders were quick at the time with vows they would restore this right to voters, fix the legal glitches that prompted the Supreme Court to rule it invalid. Many lawmakers said they support the right.
The House and Senate versions of the measure, which would have required ratification by voters in November, differed. But both would have greatly restricted voters’ right to ballot initiative compared to the process that had been in place since 1992. Many supporters of restoring the right have been angered about legislative leaders’ proposals to date. In the House, most Democrats despite supporting restoration of the right voted “present” on the House version they found it so restrictive.
House Minority Leader Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, said if a bill is passed this session restoring the initiative, it should be a “clean” proposal that requires the same number of signatures to get an issue on the ballot as the initiative process that was struck down by the Supreme Court. Johnson said the proposal should not ban issues, such as abortion, from being taken up through the initiative process as was in the most recent House version.
The Senate position on the initiative would require the signatures of at least 240,000 registered voters to place an issue on a statewide ballot. The House version would require about 106,000, nearer the previous threshold required for the last 30 years.
Under both proposals, the Legislature by a simple majority vote could change or repeal an initiative approved by the electorate. Unlike the previous process voters had for decades, voters could only pass or change state laws, not the state constitution.
Senate President Protem Dean Kirby, who proposed the rules suspension to revive the measure, on Monday said he believes many senators still support the higher signature threshold but, “Hopefully we can work out some kind of compromise.”
“We all want something passed,” Kirby said. “I think a lot of people out there do want a ballot initiative and we are going to make an effort.”
A recent Mississippi Today/Siena College poll shows Mississippi voters across the spectrum want their right to put issues directly on a statewide ballot restored.
The poll showed 72% favor reinstating ballot initiative, with 12% opposed and 16% either don’t know or have no opinion. Restoring the right garnered a large majority among Democrats, Republicans, independents and across all demographic, geographic and income lines.
Rep. Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, heard about the Senate’s attempt to revive the measure as he walked off the House floor Monday afternoon.
