Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County defeated incumbent state Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens for a seat on the state’s highest court, giving the state GOP a decisive win as they seek to tighten their grip on political and judicial power in Mississippi.
The Associated Press on Friday called the race for Branning as counties finished transmitting official results from the Nov. 26 runoff election to the Secretary of State’s office. With 99% of the vote reported, Branning received 50.6% of the vote while Kitchens received 49.4%.
Branning is a private practice attorney who was first elected to the Legislature in 2015. She has led the Senate Elections and Transportation committees. During her time at the Capitol, she has been one of the more conservative members of the Senate, voting against changing the state flag to remove the Confederate battle emblem, voting against expanding Medicaid to the working poor and supporting mandatory and increased minimum sentences for crime.
While campaigning, she pledged to ensure that “conservative values” are always represented in the judiciary, but she stopped short of endorsing policy positions, which Mississippi judicial candidates are prohibited from doing.
Judicial races in Mississippi are technically nonpartisan, but party politics still plays a significant role in the elections. Political parties and trade associations often contribute money to candidates and cut ads for them.
The state Republican Party worked hard to oust Kitchens, one of the dwindling number of centrist jurists on the high court, and consolidate its infrastructure behind Branning. The GOP endorsed Branning’s campaign.
Kitchens’ narrow loss to Branning is notable because the longtime jurist was the next in line for chief justice should current Chief Justice Michael Randolph step down.
Kitchens was first elected to the court in 2008 and is a former district attorney and private-practice lawyer. On the campaign trail, he pointed to his experience as an attorney and judge, particularly his years prosecuting criminals and his rulings on criminal cases.
A Crystal Springs resident, he is one of two centrist members of the high Court and was widely viewed as the preferred candidate of Democrats, though the Democratic Party did not endorse his candidacy.
When Kitchens leaves office, that will make Justice Leslie King, elected from the Central District, the second highest-ranking judge and Justice Josiah Coleman, elected from the Northern District, the third most senior judge on the court.
A group of civil rights organizations wrote a letter to Secretary of State Michael Watson’s office Tuesday asking for an explanation for why the agency declared that Wednesday would be the final day that elections workers could process mail-in absentee ballots.
Representatives from Disability Rights Mississippi, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the state conference of the NAACP said that Watson’s office, which oversees state elections, unilaterally counted Friday, November 29, as a business day, even though the state government considered that day a holiday.
The questions from the three organizations come at a time when incumbent Justice Jim Kitchens and Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning remain locked in a tight race for a seat on the Mississippi Supreme Court as absentee ballots are being counted.
The reason for the questions surrounding what the agency considers a business day is that current state law allows local election workers to process mail-in absentee ballots for five business days after Election Day, as long as the absentee ballots were postmarked by the date of the election.
Though the United States Postal Service conducted business on Friday November 29, Gov. Tate Reeves declared November 28 and November 29 state holidays because of Thanksgiving.
“The decision to count Friday, November 29, 2024, as a ‘business day’ disregards Mississippi law, which will lead to voter confusion and undermine the ability of Mississippi voters to participate in the electoral process,” the letter said.
The decision to count November 29 as a business day, means that December 4 is the deadline for local officials to process the mail-in ballots — not December 5 as originally planned.
Watson’s office declined to comment.
The secretary of state’s office also published a 2024 elections calendar this year that stated December 5 – not December 4 – would be the deadline for local election workers to process absentee ballots, though the calendar is for planning purposes only.
Neither candidate in the Supreme Court runoff has conceded the race yet, and county officials have until Friday December 6 to certify the results and transmit them to Watson’s office.
A federal appeals court ruled last month that Mississippi’s process of accepting mail-in ballots after Election Day violated federal law, though the ruling did not apply to this year’s election.
Anyone who has read this column regularly through the years knows my love of history, Mississippi sports history in particular. That passion only increases when it involves my hometown, Hattiesburg.
This Saturday night, the undefeated Hattiesburg High Tigers will play Grenada for the State Class 6A Championship. Should Hattiesburg win, it would mark the school’s first state football championship in precisely 100 years. That’s right: On Dec. 5, 1924, undefeated Hattiesburg defeated Louisville 20-14 at Laurel for the state championship.
Rick Cleveland
Hattiesburg High has won several state championships in other sports, but the 1924 championship remains the school’s only state football crown. And boy oh boy, is there some history there.
Let’s start with this: Hattiesburg businessmen chartered a 12-car train from Southern Railway for the 30-mile trip to Laurel. What’s more, they had the cars decorated in school colors, purple and gold. According to reports in the next day’s Hattiesburg American, more than 3,000 Hattiesburgers — nearly 1,000 on the train — made the trip, especially impressive since the entire town’s population was just over 13,000 in the 1920 census.
More than 5,000 fans in all attended the championship game, at the time the second largest crowd to attend a sporting event in Mississippi history, second only to an Ole Miss-Mississippi State football game at the State Fairgrounds in Jackson.
Since there were no stadium lights back then, the state championship game was played in the afternoon. When the victorious Tigers and their huge following arrived back in the Hub City at 6:47 p.m. they were greeted by all the town’s industrial whistles and police and ambulance sirens. Hattiesburg telephone operators reported nearly 2,000 calls from alarmed residents wondering what in the world had happened to cause such a ruckus. A parade led by the mayor through downtown Hattiesburg drew a larger crowd than the parade that celebrated the end of World War I, the Hattiesburg American reported.
“The Tigers of Hattiesburg were in possession of the city,” the American reported the next day. “The sweet taste of victory sent the crowd of more than 3,000 into a riot of cheering … This kept up until late in the evening.”
Hubby Walker runs for Ole Miss in a game at Arkansas in 1926. Players had the option of wearing helmets then. (Ole Miss photo)
So much history: Two of the Tigers heroes that night were brothers Gerald “Gee” and Harvey “Hubby” Walker, who would go on to become football and baseball stars at Ole Miss and then on to play Major League Baseball. Gee Walker was an American League All-Star who batted .353 in 1936 and remains the only player in Major League history to hit for the cycle (home run, triple, double and single) on Opening Day, which he did, in that order, in 1937 with the Detroit Tigers.
Hub (left) and Gee Walker, when both played for the Detroit Tigers in the 1930s. (Photo courtesy Ole Miss)
For the Hattiesburg state champs of 2024, Gee Walker caught the passes that his brother Hubby threw. Hansel Batten, a sturdy, handsome youngster, was the Hattiesburg running star who scored two touchdowns, including the game-winner. Batten would go on to star at Ole Miss, where he was teammates again with the Walker brothers. Batten played both running back and linebacker and captained the Ole Miss football team. After that, his story takes an abrupt turn.
Batten would become the sports editor and sometimes news reporter of the Hattiesburg American, often writing about the sport he once played so well. Tragically, in 1932, Batten was the victim of an apparent murder. Tom and Venie Jones, a husband and wife, were charged with the crime. The husband was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but later granted a new trial and acquitted. The wife was acquitted after a series of trials. The story of Batten’s mysterious death and the trials that followed is covered in a fascinating podcast series “Reckless on the Rails” by Ellisville journalist/historian William T. Browning that can be accessed here. I highly recommend.
A much happier story is that the modern day Hattiesburg High Tigers, coached by Tony Vance and quarterbacked by his son Deuce Vance, will play for a second state championship 100 years after the historic first. Former Mississippi State standout Michael Fair coaches Grenada, which enters the championship game with a 14-1 record. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. Saturday night.
It should be a terrific game. One thing is certain, should Hattiesburg (13-0) win, the Hub City will have a hard time topping the historic celebration that occurred 100 years ago this week.
Columnist Rick Cleveland is a 1970 graduate of Hattiesburg High and a former sports editor of the Hattiesburg American. His father, Robert “Ace” Cleveland, was sports editor of the Hattiesburg American when Rick was born. Ace Cleveland, a four-sport letterman at Hattiesburg High, earned his nickname when the Hattiesburg American referred to him as Hattiesburg High’s “ace placekicker.” It stuck.
The U.S. Navy is transforming a costly flub into a potent weapon with the first shipborne hypersonic weapon, which is being retrofitted aboard the first of its three stealthy destroyers.
The USS Zumwalt is at a Mississippi shipyard where workers have installed missile tubes that replace twin turrets from a gun system that was never activated because it was too expensive. Once the system is complete, the Zumwalt will provide a platform for conducting fast, precision strikes from greater distances, adding to the usefulness of the warship.
“It was a costly blunder. But the Navy could take victory from the jaws of defeat here, and get some utility out of them by making them into a hypersonic platform,” said Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute.
The U.S. has had several types of hypersonic weapons in development for the past two decades, but recent tests by both Russia and China have added pressure to the U.S. military to hasten their production.
Hypersonic weapons travel beyond Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, with added maneuverability making them harder to shoot down.
Last year, The Washington Post reported that among the documents leaked by former Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira was a defense department briefing that confirmed China had recently tested an intermediate-range hypersonic weapon called the DF-27. While the Pentagon had previously acknowledged the weapon’s development, it had not recognized its testing.
One of the U.S. programs in development and planned for the Zumwalt is the “Conventional Prompt Strike.” It would launch like a ballistic missile and then release a hypersonic glide vehicle that would travel at speeds seven to eight times faster than the speed of sound before hitting the target. The weapon system is being developed jointly by the Navy and Army. Each of the Zumwalt-class destroyers would be equipped with four missile tubes, each with three of the missiles for a total of 12 hypersonic weapons per ship.
In choosing the Zumwalt, the Navy is attempting to add to the usefulness of a $7.5 billion warship that is considered by critics to be an expensive mistake despite serving as a test platform for multiple innovations.
The Zumwalt was envisioned as providing land-attack capability with an Advanced Gun System with rocket-assisted projectiles to open the way for Marines to charge ashore. But the system featuring 155 mm guns hidden in stealthy turrets was canceled because each of the rocket-assisted projectiles cost between $800,000 and $1 million.
Despite the stain on its reputation, the three Zumwalt-class destroyers remain the Navy’s most advanced surface warship in terms of new technologies. Those innovations include electric propulsion, an angular shape to minimize radar signature, an unconventional wave-piercing hull, automated fire and damage control and a composite deckhouse that hides radar and other sensors.
The Zumwalt arrived at the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in August 2023 and was removed from the water for the complex work of integrating the new weapon system. It is due to be undocked this week in preparation for the next round of tests and its return to the fleet, shipyard spokeswoman Kimberly Aguillard said.
A U.S. hypersonic weapon was successfully tested over the summer and development of the missiles is continuing. The Navy wants to begin testing the system aboard the Zumwalt in 2027 or 2028, according to the Navy.
The U.S. weapon system will come at a steep price. It would cost nearly $18 billion to buy 300 of the weapons and maintain them over 20 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Critics say there is too little bang for the buck.
“This particular missile costs more than a dozen tanks. All it gets you is a precise non-nuclear explosion, some place far far away. Is it really worth the money? The answer is most of the time the missile costs much more than any target you can destroy with it,” said Loren Thompson, a longtime military analyst in Washington, D.C.
But they provide the capability for Navy vessels to strike an enemy from a distance of thousands of kilometers — outside the range of most enemy weapons — and there is no effective defense against them, said retired Navy Rear Adm. Ray Spicer, CEO of the U.S. Naval Institute, an independent forum focusing on national security issues, and former commander of an aircraft carrier strike force.
Conventional missiles that cost less aren’t much of a bargain if they are unable to reach their targets, Spicer said, adding the U.S. military really has no choice but to pursue them.
“The adversary has them. We never want to be outdone,” he said.
The U.S. is accelerating development because hypersonics have been identified as vital to U.S. national security with “survivable and lethal capabilities,” said James Weber, principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Critical Technologies.
“Fielding new capabilities that are based on hypersonic technologies is a priority for the defense department to sustain and strengthen our integrated deterrence, and to build enduring advantages,” he said.
Seven high school championship football games will be played Thursday through Saturday at The Rock in Hattiesburg. There are intriguing matchups, involving some of the top recruits in the state. Also, the Clevelands discuss last week’s Egg Bowl, the college football playoffs, the job vacancy at Southern Miss and violence in the NFL.
A new report warns Mississippi could see the steepest drop off in health insurance coverage if Congress doesn’t vote to extend temporary health coverage subsidies at the end of next year.
“If the enhanced premium tax credits expire, there will be dramatic declines in Marketplace coverage and increases in uninsurance, but the effects will not be felt equally across states or by race, income, and age,” said Jessica Banthin, senior fellow at the Urban Institute in a statement. “Our analysis shows that their expiration could mean some communities may experience greater coverage losses, making healthcare unaffordable and inaccessible.”
The increased subsidies allow Americans to buy health insurance plans on the Affordable Care Act Marketplace at lower costs with enhanced premium tax credits. The benefits were first authorized by Congress in 2021 to help more Americans attain health care coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic.
They also allowed more Americans than before to access the premium tax credits by raising the income ceiling for eligibility and allowed low-income households to access insurance without paying premiums.
The benefits, which have led to a record high of 21.3 million people insured through the Marketplace nationwide, will expire in December 2025 without a renewal from Congress.
“If (the premium tax credits) go away next year, I’m afraid it will reset us to where we were five years ago, with the Marketplace policies basically becoming catastrophic plans again,” State Health Office Dr. Daniel Edney told Mississippi Today.
Catastrophic plans are designed to cover major medical emergencies but not routine medical care.
Premium payments are expected to increase by over 75% on average if the tax credits expire.
For a 40-year-old living alone in Jackson and making $30,000 annually, the cost of monthly premiums for a silver health insurance plan would rise $93 a month, from $49 to $143, according to KFF.
The Marketplace is a federally or state-operated health insurance exchange where people can shop for and enroll in coverage and access financial assistance based on their income.
The enhanced tax credits have contributed to a significant increase in health care coverage in Mississippi since 2021.
In 2020, 12.9% of Mississippians were uninsured, compared to 10.5% in 2023.
“It’s been a gamechanger,” said Edney.
Health care coverage through the Marketplace in Mississippi has nearly doubled since the benefits were passed, representing the second highest percent increase in the nation behind Texas.
Mississippi remains one of 10 states in the nation not to expand Medicaid coverage, making it more reliant on the Marketplace for affordable health care coverage. Marketplace enrollment rates since 2020 have grown fastest in states with high uninsured rates that have also not expanded Medicaid.
The Urban Institute’s data tool predicts that if the enhanced tax credits are not renewed, 143,000 Mississippians would lose coverage under subsidized Marketplace plans.
Some would have the option to enroll in employer-sponsored coverage or be able to afford health insurance without the additional benefits. But most are forecasted to lose coverage entirely.
Mississippi currently uses the federal exchange, but the Legislature passed a law authorizing the creation of a state-based Marketplace earlier this year, which could incentivize health insurance companies to offer policies at lower costs. But federal officials will not approve Mississippi implementing its own exchange because Gov. Tate Reeves has not yet provided a letter of approval.
OXFORD – Jimmie “Jay” Lee disappeared on his mother’s birthday.
Every year, Lee would call his mother, Stephanie, to sing “Happy Birthday.” On July 8, 2022, he texted her around 2 a.m. But the 20-year-old never responded after that. Not to Stephanie’s texts. Or to her 92 missed calls.
That’s because just a few hours later, Lee was allegedly killed by Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr., a fellow student at the University of Mississippi with whom Lee had a secret relationship, the prosecution argued in their opening statement in Herrington’s capital murder trial on Tuesday at the Lafayette County Courthouse.
Lee had gone back to Herrington’s apartment at Herrington’s behest after the two had fought about sex, the prosecution said. Lee was a well-known member of Oxford’s LGBTQ+ community, but Herrington, whose family leads a prominent church in his hometown of Grenada, was not.
“He invited Jay back over with the promise that he was gonna do something he’d never done,” said Gwen Agho, a special prosecutor from Hinds County who joined the case to assist Lafayette County District Attorney Ben Creekmore.
But after 22,000 pages of evidence, 71 search warrants and seven law enforcement agencies, there is no direct evidence to show that Lee is dead, argued state Rep. Kevin Horan in his opening statements defending Herrington.
There is no body, no DNA, no blood and no urine, Horan said. Last week, he successfully moved to exclude evidence from K9 dogs from the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Department that “alerted” to the smell of a dead body in Herrington’s apartment and car after questioning its validity.
Horan also sought to cast doubt on evidence on what may be the strongest piece of circumstantial evidence the prosecution has to offer: A Google search that Herrington allegedly made while Lee was on his way over that reads “how long does it take to strangle someone.”
The search could have been about sexual activity with anyone, not just Lee, Horan said.
“I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, that at the conclusion of this case, you’re going to have just as many questions then as you have now about whether or not they’ve proven a death,” Horan told the jury.
In fact, Horan said the evidence will show that it was actually Lee who threatened Herrington, because Lee sent a message before heading over telling Herrington “if this goes bad, it’s not gonna be good for you.”
If convicted, Herrington faces the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“You can’t go on objection, you can’t go on speculation, you can’t go on suspicion,” Horan told the jury. “Guesswork. Wonderment. All of those things you can’t do.”
The opening of trial came after jurors arrived late Monday night from Hattiesburg. Two years after Lee went missing, it was sparsely attended. Few sat behind Herrington, who never turned to face the gallery.
But Lee’s family and close friends seem just as committed to justice. Lee’s friends were the first members of the public to enter the courtroom shortly after 8 a.m. Some members of Lee’s family wore shirts with his picture on it.
They were instructed by Judge Kelly Luther to avoid emotional outbursts during testimony. Tissues boxes were placed in front of where Lee’s family sat. The attorneys were also told to keep their cool.
“I anticipate a hotly contested case,” Luther said before proceedings started.
The jury was comprised of eight women and seven men chosen from Forrest County. Eleven were white and four were Black.
During the selection process in Hattiesburg, potential jurors were asked if they had any problem with proof of death because Lee’s body has not been found, and none raised a hand. They were also asked if they knew any members of the LGBTQ community, or if they didn’t want to be exposed to information about a relationship between two men.
In his opening statement, Horan noted the case was touchy, due to Lee and Herrington’s sexual relationship and the emotions of Lee’s mother, who was the state’s first witness on Tuesday.
“The court is gonna instruct you at the conclusion of this case that you cannot allow your sympathy for a mother to come into play here,” Horan told the jury. “Y’all have got to decide this case on the facts.”
Horan also said that the jury will see no evidence to support Herrington’s underlying offense of kidnapping.
“If that didn’t happen, the rest of their case goes like a house of cards,” he said.
Aside from the Google search, Agho did not address the way Herrington allegedly killed Lee in her opening statement.
Instead, she emphasized all the details that police have gathered to prove Lee is no longer living. When Lee’s friend stopped by his apartment at Stephanie’s request, the door was ajar. Lee’s dog was inside. So were his valuables and his clothes.
That fall, Lee was slated to enroll in a master’s degree in social work at Ole Miss, but he never showed up for class. In the two years since he went missing, there have been no more credit card charges under his name, and no more social media posts.
“No more anything,” Agho said. “The plans for grad school? Moot. … All proof that Jay’s no longer with us.”
In November, a Lafayette County judge declared Lee dead, at the request by his parents for a legal declaration of death.
When Stephanie Lee testified, she said the last day she saw her son was on July 7 before he headed back to Oxford after spending the holiday at home in Jackson, according to her testimony.
“What was the last thing you ever heard from your son?” Agho asked.
“It’s your birthday,” she replied.
Justice Reporter Mina Corpuz contributed to this report.
