Attorney General Lynn Fitch is asking the Supreme Court to set an execution date for Charles Ray Crawford, who has been on death row for over 30 years.
“Crawford’s death sentence is final and he has exhausted all state and federal remedies,” the attorney general’s office wrote in its Nov. 22 filing.
Fitch’s office requests the execution date to be set within the next 30 days, which could fall sometime around Christmas. But that 30 days can be extended if other court motions are filed or if other action is taken.
Crawford’s attorneys are asking for the court to hold off because he has not yet exhausted his remedies in federal court. They cited a divided decision that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued last week denying him habeas relief challenging a previous rape conviction that is not tied to his death sentence.
The appeal court’s decision came the same day the attorney general’s office asked for an execution to be set.
For his death sentence, Craword, now 58, was convicted of the rape and murder of North Mississippi Community College student Kristy Ray in 1993.
Four days before a separate trial on aggravated assault and rape charges, Crawford kidnapped 20-year-old Ray from her parents’ home in Tippah County. He left ransom notes for her family and took her to an abandoned barn and stabbed her. Crawford’s DNA was also found on Ray, indicating he sexually assaulted her, according to court records.
Crawford, also a student at North Mississippi Community College, told investigators he was going hunting and had a knife and firearm. He said he was worried about “an upcoming event” and had been stockpiling food in the barn where he killed Ray, according to court records.
Crawford said he had blackouts, remembering only being inside the Ray home, hearing someone crying, finding Ray handcuffed and then putting her in a car and driving away. After another blackout, Crawford woke up in the woods with Ray dead and her hands handcuffed behind her back.
He admitted “he must have killed her, but did not remember doing so,” according to court records. Crawford also led police to Ray’s body in the woods.
At his 1994 trial, Crawford presented an insanity defense, with a prison psychiatrist who treated him testifying that he suffered from depression and periods of time lapse without memory. The psychiatrist also testified about Crawford’s past medication treatment, previous psychiatric hospitalization and bipolar disorder diagnosis in 1989.
A clinical psychologist who provided rebuttal testimony didn’t see evidence of Crawford suffering from bipolar illness, and said he showed premeditation and was able to distinguish right from wrong. Another rebuttal witness, a forensic psychiatrist, said Crawford was improperly diagnosed with having psychogenic amnesia.
Crawford was convicted in Lafayette County as a habitual offender for burglary, rape, sexual battery and capital murder.
The Mississippi Supreme Court denied his appeal, and several times the U.S. Supreme Court denied him a petition for writ of certiorari.
Crawford has also pursued post-conviction relief. In 2017, the court denied a motion for an execution to be set because he was still challenging his rape and aggravated assault conviction and sentence.
In those cases, he was convicted for raping a 17-year-old and hitting her friend over the head with a hammer, according to court records. Similarly, he claimed insanity and said he didn’t remember because of blackouts.
The Nov. 22 5th Circuit Court dissent said the trial court repeatedly declined to provide Crawford with a psychiatrist or mental health professional, other than a state expert, to evaluate him and help with his defense, a violation of his rights. The justices also said his appellate counsel was ineffective.
The dissent mentions how Crawford was eventually evaluated by qualified mental experts and diagnosed with severe brain injury and partial epilepsy, which explains his spells and periods of blackouts, and how on the day of the 17-year-old’s rape he was in a state of repetitive seizures.
The Pearl Police Department fired patrol officer Taylor Lofton for reportedly stealing $32,000 from a dying woman’s house. It’s the second officer dismissed for alleged criminal conduct in less than a year.
On the morning of Nov. 18, Jason Kelly’s mother, Jackie, collapsed unexpectedly, and his father called 911.
Jackie Kelly Credit: Courtesy of Baldwin-Lee Funeral Home
Ambulance workers arrived. So did four or five Pearl police officers, including Lofton, Kelly said.
His 80-year-old mother never recovered and may have died of a blood clot, he said. “It was unexpected.”
She had just inherited $32,000 and received the money in cash, which she put in an envelope in her drawer in the bedroom, he said.
After ambulance workers and police left, Kelly said his father determined the cash had been stolen and called Pearl police, who returned to the home.
After arriving, Lofton admitted that he had opened the drawer and seen the money, but he insisted he closed it right back, Kelly said. “He turned off his camera and stole $32,000.”
Kelly praised Pearl police’s swift response and said, “I hope they press charges.”
He said he doesn’t know if the city is going to pay the family back.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is investigating, but spokesperson Bailey Martin said the agency could not comment further. Lofton could not be reached for comment.
Kelly believes there must have been thefts on previous occasions as well. “This ain’t his first time doing this,” he said.
Pearl Police Chief Nick McLendon said he’s not aware of any previous incidents.
Asked about possible criminal prosecution, he said he could not comment further because the case is under investigation.
He said in a statement made public that the officer hasn’t been charged with any crime and should be presumed innocent. But the department, he said, “must be concerned with even the slightest appearance of impropriety — and especially in the area of law enforcement.”
Two days before Christmas 2023, Pearl police officer Michael Christian Green forced a man he arrested to lick urine from a holding cell floor.
The 26-year-old officer took the man into custody after a family disturbance call to Sam’s Club in Pearl. After he booked the man into a holding cell, footage showed the man telling Green he needed to urinate, but when Green failed to respond, the man urinated in a corner, according to the federal bill of information.
When Green found out what the man had done, Green berated him, “Let me tell you something. You see this phone? I will beat your f—ing ass with it. You’re fixin’ to go in there, and you’re gonna lick that p— up. Do you understand me? … Go suck it up right now.”
Green filmed the man as he licked the urine from the floor, and when the man gagged, Green said, “Don’t spit it out.” When the man gagged, Green responded, “Lick that s— up. Drink your f—in’ p—.”
When the man was allowed to leave the booking area, he vomited in a garbage can.
On June 13, Greenwas sentenced to a year in federal prison and a $1,500 fine. He told the judge he regrets what he did.
Pearl Mayor Jake Windham Credit: Courtesy of the City of Pearl)
At a press conference after Green’s guilty plea, Pearl Mayor Jake Windham told reporters, “God created us in his image. Treating someone like this is despicable.”
“If you’re going to operate as a police officer,” said Windham, who served in law enforcement for 16 years, “you’ve got to do things right.”
He apologized to the man and his family for “the horrible treatment by an officer of the law.”
At the time, Windham declared, “We hold our officers to a higher standard.”
Four days after the incident, Windham confronted Green and told him to resign, which he did.
The city handles matters swiftly, Windham said. “I think there’s a stark contrast between the Pearl Police Department and this incident [and the handling of] the ‘Goon Squad.’”
Six Rankin County officers were involved in the January 2023 torture of two Black men and the shooting of one of them, but it wasn’t until six months later that those involved were fired. The six officers pleaded guilty and are now serving between 10 and 40 years in federal prison.
Green had been on the force six months when this incident occurred. “His certificate was clean when he came to the Pearl Police Department,” Windham said. “We strive to do an extensive background check on people.”
He said he hopes law enforcement agencies would report any problems with officers to the Mississippi Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training.
A new law, passed in the wake of the Goon Squad’s acts, beefs up the board’s ability to investigate allegations against officers.
As for Lofton, McLendon put the officer on administrative leave after investigating the matter. On Thursday, the Pearl Board of Aldermen fired the officer on McLendon’s recommendation.
“We acted on it immediately,” Windham said. “We don’t put up with it.”
It’s a bad situation when “you have to terminate officers,” he said, “but we’re going to make sure that if they screw up, we’re going to send them down the road.”
Asked about getting the $32,000 back to the family, the mayor replied, “Our goal is to make the family whole as soon as possible.”
Lofton was hired by Dean Scott, who resigned as Pearl police chief in January after an investigation into possible misuse of tax dollars. A WLBT investigation revealed that Scott claimed to work for Rankin County as a homestead fraud investigator while on city business at law enforcement conferences on the Coast. He now works as a lieutenant for Capitol Police.
Lofton worked at a series of jobs in law enforcement. He worked at the Greenwood, Flowood and Brandon police departments before starting at Pearl Police Department, where he had worked since 2023.
Lofton completed 480 hours at the Mississippi Delta Community College Law Enforcement Training Academy. He is married and has a newborn son, according to his Facebook page.
“He threw his whole life away,” Kelly said. “You risk your whole family for $32,000?”
UPDATE 11/26/24: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the accused police officer’s last name and his education.
Note: This story was co-published with Open Campus, The Hechinger Report, and The Washington Post.
CLEVELAND — With no car and a toddler, Shamya Jones enrolled this fall at the four-year university in her small town in Mississippi — Delta State University.
She planned to major in digital media arts, but before she could start, the college eliminated that major, along with 20 other degree programs including history, English, chemistry and music.
She was advised to change her major, even though the university would go on to offer a bachelor of arts in digital media, which the university’s governing board approved last week.
“They’re cutting off so much, and teachers [are] leaving,” Jones said. The cuts “take away from us, our education.”
Across the country, rural students like Jones are feeling short-changed and frustrated.
Many of the comparatively few universities that serve rural students are eliminating large numbers of programs and majors, blaming plummeting enrollment and resulting financial crises. Nationwide, college enrollment has declined by 2 million students, or 10 percent, in the 10 years ending in 2022, hitting rural schools particularly hard. An increasing number of rural private, nonprofit colleges are not only cutting majors, but closing altogether.
“We are asking rural folks to accept a set of options that folks in cities and suburbs would never accept,” said Andrew Koricich, a professor of higher education at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. “It’s almost like, ‘Well, this is what you get to learn, and this is how you get to learn it. And if you don’t like it, you can move.’ ”
For many rural students, there are already few places to go. About 13 million people live in higher education “deserts,” the American Council on Education estimates, mostly in the Midwest and Great Plains, where the nearest university is beyond a reasonable commute away.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen private, nonprofit universities and colleges that are in rural areas or serve large proportions of rural students have closed since 2020, data show.
“It is creating a second class of people to say, ‘You pay your taxes just like everybody else does. You vote like everybody else does. But you just can’t have the same choices as everybody else, because there aren’t enough of you here,’” Koricich said of the cuts. “In a lot of rural places, the idea of choice is sort of a fiction,” he said.
Rural-serving institutions are defined by the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges, or ARRC, which Koricich directs, as those located in counties classified as rural and not near a metropolitan area.
Even some flagship universities that serve rural communities are making big cuts. West Virginia University this fall began the process of eliminating 28 undergraduate and graduate majors and programs, including most foreign languages and graduate programs in math and public administration. The University of Montana is phasing out or has frozen more than 30 certificate, undergraduate and graduate degree programs and concentrations. A course review is also underway at branch campuses of Pennsylvania State University due to declining enrollment.
But most of the cuts have occurred at regional public universities, which get considerably less money from their states — about $1,100 less, per student, than flagships, the ARRC calculates. Regional institutions educate 70 percent of undergraduates who go to public four-year schools, according to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. These campuses are also more likely than other kinds of institutions to enroll students from lower-income families and who are the first in their families to go to college, the Baltimore-based Art & Science Group consulting firm found.
St. Cloud State University in Minnesota is cutting 42 degree programs, for example, including criminal justice, gerontology, history, electrical and environmental engineering, economics and physics. The University of Alaska System has scaled back more than 40 programs since 2020, including earth sciences, geography and environmental resources and hospitality administration. Also during that period, Henderson State University in Arkansas dropped 25 and. Emporia State University in Kansas cut, merged or downgraded around 40 undergraduate and graduate majors, minors and concentrations.
The State University of New York at Fredonia is dropping 13 majors. SUNY Potsdam is cutting chemistry, physics, philosophy, French, Spanish and four other programs. The University of North Carolina Asheville is discontinuing religious studies, drama, philosophy and concentrations in French and German.
“Some institutions have no other options” than to do this, because of financial problems and plummeting enrollment, said Charles Welch, president and CEO of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities and a former president of Henderson State and the Arkansas State University System, both of which have cut programs.
At Delta State, for instance, enrollment is down by nearly a quarter since 2014.
A drop in tuition revenue stemming from that decline created an $11 million hole in the university’s budget, President Daniel Ennis told the campus last year. When Ennis got to Delta State, he also found the university was overestimating its revenue from facilities and merchandise.
Delta State University President Daniel J. Ennis attends the Mississippi State Institutions of Higher Learning board meeting at the IHL headquarters in Jackson, Miss., on Thursday, June 20, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
“At a certain point there’s going to be less of everything — personnel, money, equipment and opportunities — because we have to rightsize the budget,” Ennis said.
But the American Association of University Professors, which represents faculty, said in a 2021 report that problems such as enrollment drops made worse by the pandemic are being exploited by administrators to close programs “as expeditiously as if colleges and universities were businesses whose CEOs suddenly decided to stop making widgets or shut down the steelworks.”
Welch said schools are often simply trying to reduce program duplication among campuses in the same systems and compensate for having less financial support than flagship universities.
“The challenge that our institutions have is that they tend to be lower resourced than institutions in urban areas, or flagship institutions. They can’t rely on big endowments,” Welch said. The pandemic, he said, “threw a whole additional layer on top of what those institutions were already facing.”
Many of the majors affected are in the humanities and languages, making those disciplines less available to rural students than they are to people who live in urban and suburban areas.
These subjects “do much of the work of helping students dream beyond their realities,” said Michael Theune, who chairs the English Department at Illinois Wesleyan University, a private, nonprofit school thathas also eliminated majors. “We are paring down the sense of the vastness of our world and the possibilities of university students to experience it differently.”
Some rural-serving public universities and public universities in largely rural states have now undergone repeated rounds of cuts. Youngstown State University in Ohio, for instance, axed Italian, religious studies and other majors in 2021, then six more this year. In all, more than 25 programs have now been eliminated there, many of them in the humanities.
The university, in a message to the campus, pointed out that there were no students at all in 10 of those majors. But students and faculty say it was still important to offer them.
Owen Bertram, a senior theater studies major at Youngstown State University which has eliminated more than 25 programs and majors. Bertram is about to graduate, but says he hears his classmates asking the questions, “Do I stay?” “Do I leave?” “Is it worth it?” Credit: Amy Morona for Open Campus
“It is easy to just write us off as, ‘Oh, well, do they really need that school?’ when there are so many other majors,” said Owen Bertram, a senior theater major whose program has so far escaped the cuts. “But I don’t think it’s that simple.”
Bertram, who is also student government representative for the university’s College of Creative Arts, said it’s hard to watch his classmates who wanted to study humanities struggle with the questions, “Do I stay?” “Do I leave?” “Is it worth it?”
At many of the schools, it’s too early to tell if the program cuts will lead to even lower enrollment. In some cases, however, enrollment has continued to decline. At Emporia State, enrollment is down by 14 percent in the two years since about 40 majors were eliminated there.
These cuts come at a time when the proportion of rural high school graduates going to college is falling. Fifty-five percent enroll right after high school, down from 61 percent in 2016, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. That’s a lower rate than the national average.
Low-income and Black students are disproportionately impacted by program cuts. The University of North Carolina Greensboro, for example, is in the process of phasing out 20 degree programs, including anthropology and physics. More than half the students are low income and 28 percent are Black, according to the state university system.
Holly Buroughs poses for a portrait in front of the Jackson Library on the UNC Greensboro campus. Credit: Alycee Byrd for The Hechinger Report
“UNCG should be a place where anyone should be able to come and get an affordable education in whatever they want,” said Holly Buroughs, a physics major who started a petition protesting the cuts.
“Is a first-gen student like me going to come next year and not see the UNCG that I fell in love with and the opportunities I had?” asked Azariah Journey, a second-year graduate student in history who comes from a rural town in Kentucky.
Azariah Journey poses for a portrait in front of the Jackson Library on the UNC Greensboro campus. Credit: Alycee Byrd for The Hechinger Report
Dominick Bellipanni is one of the last remaining music students at Delta State as the department is being phased out. He received a scholarship to study piano, which he isn’t sure he would have gotten at the state’s larger, more competitive universities.
Bellipanni is from Indianola, a once-busy crossroad 30 minutes from the university, where he grew up hearing stories about businesses that once operated there but closed.
Delta State! Dominick Bellipanni, a music major at Delta State University in Mississippi, standing in front of the music building. The university is phasing out its music program. Credit: Molly Minta for Open Campus and Mississippi Today
“Used to be, used to be, used to be,” he remembered people telling him.
Now he’s hearing that again.
His professors talk abouthow there used to be more music recitals, more scholarships, more money, said Bellipanni, who said he plans to leave the Mississippi Delta when he graduates.
“All you hear is, ‘We used to have this, because we used to have more students.’ ”
Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556 or jmarcus@hechingerreport.org.
This story about rural college majors was produced byThe Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education, andOpen Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on strengthening local coverage of higher education. Reporters in the Open CampusLocal Network contributed: Mississippi Today’s Molly Minta, WUNC’s Brianna Atkinson and Signal Ohio’s Amy Morona
UPDATE 11/26/24: This story has been updated to reflect that Delta State is now offering a bachelor of arts degree in digital media.
On Tuesday, Nov. 26, voters will determine who will hold one of central Mississippi’s three seats on the nine-member state Supreme Court. This 22-county area includes Hinds County and Jackson.
Justice Jim Kitchens is seeking a third, eight-year term on the high court. State Sen. Jenifer B. Branning is the challenger.
The state Supreme Court often has the final say in cases involving criminal, civil and death penalty appeals, questions on the state’s laws and constitution, and legal issues of public interest. It hears appeals from lower courts, such as the chancery and circuit courts. The court decided 260 cases in 2023 and issued rulings in 2,656 motions and petitions.
The Marshall Project – Jackson and Mississippi Today compiled information about each candidate to help you make an informed decision at the polls.
Admitted to Mississippi Bar: 1967
Residence: Crystal Springs, Copiah County
Relevant experience: Completing second term as Supreme Court justice; 41 years as practicing attorney, including nine as district attorney of Copiah, Walthall, Pike and Lincoln counties.
Campaign finance: As of Oct. 10, his campaign committee has raised $288,502, mostly from trial lawyers, and spent $189,675, leaving the campaign with $98,827. Read the latest report here.
Statement of economic interest: Kitchens and his wife are partners in a real estate company, Kitchens Properties, LLC, in Copiah County. Read the latest report here.
Kitchens was first elected to this seat in 2008, after more than 40 years practicing law, which includes nine years as a district attorney across four counties. He is one of two presiding justices, who have the most years on the bench, following the chief justice. Presiding justice is a role on the court’s executive committee that includes administrative duties, such as enforcing the court’s deadlines, and presiding over panels during oral arguments.
Kitchens said he is “the guy that carries his oath of office around in his pocket as a daily reminder of what he swore to do. That oath teaches me that I’m not supposed to care whether people before the court are rich, poor, Black, White, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Independent. And I don’t care.”
Mississippi College of Law Professor Matthew Steffey described Kitchens as a “middle-of-the-road centrist.” On the bench, Kitchens’ dissents have keyed in on what the justice called oversteps in judicial power and scrutinized prosecutorial decisions.
Kitchens wrote a partial dissent on the decision about House Bill 1020, calling the creation of the court in Hinds County a “fiction of convenience that overreaches our judicial function, and of ultimate importance, our constitutional duty.” He also joined a dissenting opinion in the case that killed Mississippi’s ballot initiative.
Ensuring defendants who can’t afford representation have court-appointed lawyers is a theme throughout Kitchens’ career. He was the chair of the Public Defender Task Force, which was created in 2000 to study and make recommendations on the public defender systems in the state. In a 2018 interview with Mississippi Today, Kitchens expressed support for a more well-organized and adequately funded state public defender system for Mississippi.
The bulk of Kitchens’ campaign donations through Oct. 10 have come from trial lawyers. In addition to Mississippi attorneys, the campaign also received contributions from lawyers as far away as Oregon and Pennsylvania. In the three months since the July finance report, Kitchens’ campaign raised over $200,000, more than it had previously raised in the entire race. He has also received an endorsement from the Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocacy group specializing in civil rights litigation.
Campaign finance: As of Oct. 10, Branning’s campaign committee has raised $665,624, including a $250,000 loan from the candidate, and spent $343,728. The campaign reported a balance of $319,876, which left a discrepancy of about $2,000. Read the latest report here.
Statement of economic interest: Branning is listed as member, owner, stockholder or partner in several companies located in Philadelphia, including her law firm, Branning Properties, LLC, and Triple E Investments. Read her latest report here.
Republican state Sen. Jenifer B. Branning is running on a platform to represent Mississippians’ conservative values on the Supreme Court, she said at the 2024 Neshoba County Fair candidate forum.
Branning has no judicial experience. Since she joined the Mississippi Bar in 2004, she has practiced as an attorney, primarily representing businesses through her private practice in areas including real estate development, banking and agribusiness. She has also served as a special prosecutor in Neshoba County, a guardian ad litem in Neshoba and Winston counties, and as a staff attorney in the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Division of Business Services & Regulation.
Branning described herself as a “Christian conservative.” She has been endorsed by the state’s Republican Party and the National Federation of Independent Business Mississippi PAC, a special interest group for small businesses. She has been outspoken about overturning Roe v. Wade and supporting the state’s abortion ban, and about reducing taxes on businesses. Branning is also a member of the National Rifle Association. On criminal justice issues, Branning has voted in favor of mandatory and increased minimum sentences for crimes including shoplifting, motor vehicle theft and fleeing law enforcement.
In the state Senate, Branning chairs the Highways and Transportation Committee. She has touted her record on lowering taxes and reducing regulations on farmers and small business owners.
Branning comes from multiple generations of business owners in Neshoba County. Her grandfather, Olen Burrage Jr., owned and operated a truck farm, hauling timber and corn, according to previous news reports.
Her election committee has received contributions from political action groups including Truck PAC, Mississippi Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Stores Association PAC and the Mississippi REALTOR PAC.
Much of Branning’s campaign funding, however, comes from the candidate herself. She kicked off her campaign with a $250,000 candidate loan. She has also bankrolled her previous senate campaigns, with candidate loans as high as $50,000 in 2018. This year, her campaign committee also received funding from other Republican politicians and their campaign funds, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the Committee to Elect Jeremy England (state senator), Harkins for MS (state Senator Josh Harkins), and Friends of Jason White (Mississippi House speaker).
Branning did not acknowledge or return the candidate questionnaire from The Marshall Project – Jackson and Mississippi Today.
Mississippi Today, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom focused on investigative and accountability journalism, is building a dedicated team of reporters to provide in-depth coverage of Jackson, Mississippi.
As the state’s largest and capital city, Jackson matters greatly to us and all Mississippians. Launched in 2016 as the state’s flagship nonprofit newsroom focused on Mississippi government and policy, Mississippi Today is focusing our lens beyond the statehouse and to the city of Jackson, serving our readers with the watchdog reporting they’ve come to expect from Mississippi Today. Our newsroom, with a proven record of providing impactful government accountability, aims to serve the city more directly with this team.
Our Jackson team will focus on sharp investigative reporting, watchdog accountability journalism and meaningful cultural storytelling. We aim to both elevate the voices of those working for positive change in the community while offering a balanced perspective on the city’s obstacles and triumphs. Our goal is to deliver impactful, honest journalism that will inform, inspire and empower Jackson’s citizens.
The team will be led by Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Wolfe, an investigative reporter with a decade of experience covering Jackson.
Roles and Responsibilities:
We are purposefully casting a wide net, hoping to connect with journalists of many different backgrounds who may be uniquely qualified to help us launch this team.If you’re a reporter with any of the following experience or attributes, this team may be for you.
Investigative reporting focused on uncovering systemic issues within government and politics. The bigger the impact of your reporting on government leaders or systems, the better.
Political reporting covering not only high-profile candidates for offices, but experience delving into issues and ideas that affect a community. We hope to delve deeply into a deep distrust in the city’s institutions.
Cultural reporting that highlights the often-overlooked success stories of citizens who are making a positive impact on their communities.
Strong understanding of Jackson (or similar large urban centers) and the unique challenges facing the city and its residents.
Commitment to the mission of balanced, impactful journalism that centers and respects the voice of the community.
Collaborative mindset and ability to work within a team-oriented newsroom.
The starting salary for this position is $58,000. Compensation is commensurate with experience level.
Expectations:
Work with a small team of journalists who are focused on social inequities and racial equality in our area.
Willingness to collaborate closely with a small team of like-minded journalists.
Get people to talk, find willing sources and protect them while telling sensitive and timely stories.
Build trust: Many people who have been impacted by inequities in Mississippi have been victims of predatory practices and forces. This will require empathy, patience and savvy.
Work with our Audience Team and data and visual journalists to create compelling story presentations.
Qualified candidates should have:
Experience working as a reporter in a newsroom.
Ability to work quickly, with accuracy and good news judgment.
Comfortability in digital or multimedia journalism spaces.
Ability to independently develop and cultivate sources.
Ability to use social media for research and to engage readers.
What you’ll get:
The opportunity to work alongside award-winning journalists and make significant contributions to Mississippi’s top nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news and information sources.
Highly competitive salary with medical insurance, and options for vision and dental insurance.
Use of appropriate technology and equipment.
29 days paid time off.
Up to 12 weeks of parental family leave, with return-to-work flexibility.
Simple IRA with 3 percent company matching. Group-term life insurance provided to employees ($15,000 policy).
Support for professional training and attending industry conferences.
How to Apply:
We’re committed to building an inclusive newsroom that represents the people and communities we serve. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply for this position, including women, people of color, LGBTQ people and people who are differently abled. Please apply here.
CRYSTAL SPRINGS – Roger Horton has worked decades as a commercial painter, a skill he’s kept up with even with the challenge of having what his wife has called “one good eye.”
It hasn’t stopped him from being able to complete detailed paint jobs and create straight lines without the help of tape. But last year following a head injury, he and others said people have been pointing out a change in his work. Horton says the sight in his right eye is clouded, like he is looking underwater.
Affected vision, short term memory and periods of irritability – potential symptoms of concussion – followed after he was arrested last September. During an encounter with several police officers, Horton alleges more than one slammed his head into a cruiser and placed handcuffs on so tight that he started to bleed.
“(The officer) was kind of rough with me and all, and he takes my head and I said, ‘What’d I do?’” he recalled recently.
Horton ended up being convicted of two misdemeanor charges and has paid off the fines, but a year later he still has questions about the arrest and treatment by the police.
To date, he has not seen a doctor to evaluate his eye and check for vision or cognitive issues. Horton and his wife Rhonda don’t have a car, and transportation to doctor’s appointments in the Jackson area remains a challenge.
The Hortons have lived in Crystal Springs all their lives, and they have lived in the home the past five years that belonged to Rhonda’s mother.
More than a quarter of all people in Crystal Springs live below the poverty line, and that includes the couple. Rhonda Horton said it’s hard to make a living because there aren’t a lot of jobs, but they support themselves as painters.
That’s how they met Yvonne Florczak-Seeman, who lived in Illinois and purchased her first historical property in Crystal Springs in 2019. She splits her time between the two states.
“We painted that porch bar and the rest is history,” Rhonda Horton said, adding that they went on to complete detailed work on mantles, kitchen cabinets and a cigar room at Florczak-Seeman’s North Jackson Street residence.
Over the years, the couple built a relationship with Florczak-Seeman, who is seeking to open a women’s empowerment center called the Butterfly Garden, in the building next to city hall.
Yvonne Florczak-Seeman poses for a portrait at her business, The Butterfly Garden, in Crystal Springs, Miss., Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Florczak-Seeman has supported the couple numerous times, including helping them pay a late water bill and offering them work. She called them talented painters and hired them again to paint the interior of the future center, located at East Railroad Avenue.
In pieces, Rhonda Horton told Florczak-Seeman about her husband’s arrest and later the injuries she said he sustained from it. Florczak-Seeman had questions about the encounter and other potential injustices at play, so she offered to help.
“I just want them to pay for what they’ve done not just to him, but everybody,” Rhonda Horton said. “That’s what I want, justice.”
The Arrest
On Sept. 24, 2023, Horton was walking home from a friend’s house when officers approached him. One grabbed his arms to handcuff him, and he remembers them cutting his wrist and causing it to bleed.
Then, he said, a second officer slammed his head into the top of the police car, followed by another officer who slammed his head again. During the encounter, a bag of marijuana that Horton said he found fell out of his pocket onto the ground.
An officer put Horton in the back of the cruiser and took him to the station where Horton asked to speak to the police chief and call his wife. He said the police took his phone and clothes.
Afterward, he was taken to the Copiah County Detention Center in Gallman.
Police Chief Tony Hemphill disputed Horton’s allegation of mistreatment, saying he did not sustain any injuries that required hospitalization. He said Horton’s wrist was cut while he resisted arrest.
“He was not brutalized and targeted,” Hemphill said. “If he had just complied, he wouldn’t have had to come up there (to jail) that night.”
Two police reports from the night of the September 2023 arrest detail how officers had responded to a possible assault and were given the description of a white man. While in the area, they encountered Horton — the only person who fit that description.
Hemphill said a mother called police after her daughter told her she was assaulted. He said officers approached Horton on the street and tried to talk with him to rule him out as a suspect.
That’s when Horton began “fighting, pulling away, and kicking against (the officer’s) patrol vehicle, trying to run,” according to a police report from the night and Hemphill. Horton denies doing any of that.
The next day police took Horton from the county jail to the Crystal Springs police station. There, police informed him a teenage girl reported being assaulted. After learning about the assault allegation, Horton remembered feeling shocked and saying it couldn’t be true because he was not on the street where the alleged incident took place.
Hemphill confirmed the police investigated the assault allegation and found it not credible, meaning Horton wouldn’t face any related charges. He said he communicated this to Horton and his wife early on and since then, which the couple disputes.
As Horton was being arrested and detained, his wife grew worried because she had just spoken with him on the phone and expected him to arrive home shortly. Rhonda Horton and her adult son started calling Roger’s phone, each not getting an answer.
Then during one of the calls by her son, someone who did not identify himself answered Roger’s phone and said, ‘Your daddy’s dead’ and then hung up, Rhonda Horton said.
She was starting to assume the worst had happened. Rhonda Horton wouldn’t have confirmation her husband was alive until he called from the county jail in the early morning.
The next morning as she talked with the police chief, Rhonda Horton asked the chief about who answered the phone and told her son that Roger was dead. The chief told her the person who answered must have been from the county.
Hemphill later told Mississippi Today that he did not know about the call and that type of behavior by his staff “is not going to be tolerated.” Similarly, Copiah County Sheriff Byron Swilley said he had not heard about it and could not say whether a member of his department made the comment to Rhonda and Roger Horton’s son.
A Sept. 25, 2023, citation signed by Hemphill, shared with Mississippi Today, summoned Roger Horton to municipal court for the misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and resisting arrest and directed him not to have contact with the alleged victim in the assault case. No contact orders are typically for cases such as domestic violence and sexual assault and they are set by a judge.
LaKiedra Kangar, who works in municipal court services, said the no contact order was put in place because of the assault allegation. She confirmed Horton was not charged with the offense following the police department’s investigation of the allegation.
Weeks passed. Roger Horton went to court for the misdemeanor charges, to which he pleaded guilty. Felony assault charges were not part of the hearing. Municipal Court Judge Matthew Kitchens ordered Roger to pay over $900 in fines for the misdemeanors.
Horton was able to pay for some of the fine through at least 10 hours worth of court-ordered community service, which he said involved painting buildings for the city.
Months later after learning about Horton’s arrest and how he said the police treated him, Florczak-Seeman said she wanted to know more. Horton didn’t have access to his arrest documents, so she accompanied him and his wife to the police department to ask for them.
The first visit, Horton asked but did not receive the arrest report. Florczak-Seeman asked if he had a fine for any of the charges, which police said Horton did even after completing some community service hours. Florczak-Seeman paid for the remaining balance and had him work for her for two days to pay that off.
This year, they went to the police department a second time so Horton could ask for his arrest paperwork. An officer told him he didn’t need it and that the rape allegation had been investigated and found not to be credible,Horton told Mississippi Today.
Florczak-Seeman asked why Horton couldn’t receive the report. She said Hemphill asked if she was Horton’s attorney, and Florczak-Seeman clarified she was his representative.
The chief left for a few minutes and returned with two pieces of paper and handed them to Horton. Hemphill told Mississippi Today he did not recall whether he was the one who handed the report to Horton.
Florczak-Seeman took the document from Horton and began to read it as they stood in the lobby. She said she was horrified to see the name of the alleged, underage victim and her address in the report.
Hemphill said the victim’s personal information should have been restricted and not doing so was an oversight.
After reading the report, Florczak-Seeman went down the street to the mayor’s office at city hall to explain what happened, and how she believed the mayor had grounds to fire the police chief because he provided that document to Roger with the alleged victim’s information.
Crystal Springs Mayor Sally Garland Credit: Crystal Springs website
Mayor Sally Garland confirmed she had a conversation with Florczak-Seeman about the police chief’s employment.
She said she reviews all complaints about city officials, and Garland said she goes to the department head to get a better understanding of the situation. If she determines there are potential grounds for termination, a hearing would be scheduled with the Board of Aldermen, and the group would vote on that decision.
Garland did not find grounds for termination, and Hemphill remains police chief.
A Strange Visit
The Hortons and Florczak-Seeman hadn’t given much thought about the 2023 arrest, until weeks ago when a teenaged girl suddenly showed up in Florczak-Seeman’s yard.
At the end of September at the North Jackson Street home, Florczak-Seeman heard screaming and found the teenage girl who came onto her property. She asked what was wrong, and the teenager said she was chased by a dog, which Florczak-Seeman and Rhonda Horton did not see.
The teenager asked for a soda, and Rhonda Horton went inside to get one. Florczak-Seeman asked where the teenager lived, and she gave an answer that Florczak-Seeman said conflicted with what two girls who were standing nearby on the public sidewalk said she told them.
Then Florczak-Seeman asked the teenager’s name and recognized it as the name of the alleged victim on Horton’s arrest record. Immediately, Florczak-Seeman said she turned to Horton and told him to stay back, and she told the teenager to get off her property, which she did.
At the moment, they were not able to verify whether the teenager was the alleged victim from the report. Neither the Hortons nor Florczak-Seeman had seen her before, and they only knew her name from the arrest report.
“That didn’t make sense at all,” Rhonda Horton told Mississippi Today.
Florczak-Seeman called 911 to report the situation and ask for police to come, which they did not. Hemphill told Mississippi Today a dispatcher informed him about the call with Florczak-Seeman, including details with the teenage girl and how she wanted to report the girl for trespassing.
Florczak-Seeman is one of the people who have noticed a difference in Horton’s vision. It’s clear when comparing the detailed and clean paint job Roger completed at her Jackson Street property in 2019 and the center where he painted last year.
During an interview at the center in October, Florczak-Seeman pointed to the ceiling and noted spots that Horton did not paint. She remembers telling him about them and realized that he couldn’t see them.
“The spots on my ceiling are still not painted, and they’re not painted as a reminder of the injustices that happened in this situation and why I got involved,” Florczak-Seeman said.
Some Mississippi voters head to the polls Tuesday to decide who should represent them on the state’s highest courts.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Absentee voting has begun, and in-person absentee voting at county circuit clerk’s offices ends at noon on Saturday.
In the Jackson Metro area and parts of central Mississippi, incumbent Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens will compete against Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County. In areas on the Gulf Coast, Jennifer Schloegel and Amy St. Pé will face each other for an open seat on the Court of Appeals.
Candidates for judicial offices in Mississippi are technically nonpartisan, but political parties and trade associations often contribute money to candidates and cut ads for them, which has increasingly made them almost as partisan as other campaigns.
In the Central District Supreme Court race, GOP forces are working to oust Kitchens, one of the dwindling number of centrist jurists on the high Court. Conservative leaders also realize Kitchens is next in line to lead the court as chief justice should current Chief Justice Mike Randolph step down.
Kitchens is one of two centrist members of the high court and is widely viewed as the preferred candidate of Democrats, though the Democratic Party has not endorsed his candidacy.
Kitchens, first elected to the court in 2008, is a former district attorney and private-practice lawyer. On the campaign trail, he has pointed to his experience as an attorney and judge, particularly his years prosecuting criminals and his rulings on criminal cases.
In an interview on Mississippi Today’s ‘The Other Side’ podcast, Kitchens said his opponent, who primarily practices real estate law, would be at a “significant disadvantage” because the state Supreme Court often reviews criminal cases and major civil lawsuits that are sent to them on appeal.
“I’m sure she has an academic knowledge about the circuit courts that she perhaps learned in law school or perhaps has been to some seminars, but she does not have the hands-on trial experience that I have,” Kitchens said. “And that’s so important to the work that I do.”
Branning, a private-practice attorney, 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 leadership, 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 for the judicial seat, she has pledged to ensure that “conservative values” are always represented in the judiciary, but she has stopped short of endorsing policy positions — which Mississippi judicial candidates are prohibited from doing.
Branning declined an invitation to appear on Mississippi Today’s podcast.
“Mississippians need and deserve Supreme Court justices that are constitutionally conservative in nature,” Branning said in a recent interview with radio station SuperTalk Mississippi. “And by that, I mean justices that simply follow the law. They do not add or take away.”
The two candidates have collectively raised around $187,00 and spent $182,00 during the final stretch of the campaign, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Secretary of State’s office.
Since she initially qualified in January, Branning has raised the most amount of money at $879,871, with $250,000 of that money coming from a loan she gave her campaign. She spent around $730,000 of that money. Several third party groups have supported her campaign.
Kitchens has raised around $514,00 since he qualified for reelection. He’s spent roughly $436,000 of that money, and some of his top contributors have been trial attorneys.
For the open Court of Appeals seat, Schloegel and St Pe, two influential names on the Gulf Coast, are working to turn out their voters in a close election.
Schloegel is a Chancery Court judge in Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties. St. Pé is an attorney in private practice, a municipal court judge in Gautier, and a city attorney for Moss Point.
Schloegel has raised roughly $214,000 since she qualified, and has spent almost that same amount of money this election cycle. St. Pé has raised around $480,000 this year and spent approximately $438,067 during that timeframe.
Whoever wins the race, it ensures that a woman will fill the open seat. After the election, half of the judges on the 10-member appellate court will be women, the most number of women who have served on the court at one time.
The governing board of Mississippi’s public universities voted Thursday to delete the word “diversity” from several policies, including a requirement that the board evaluate university presidents on campus diversity outcomes.
Though the Legislature has not passed a bill targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in higher education, the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees approved the changes “in order to ensure continued compliance with state and federal law,” according to the board book.
The move comes on the heels of the re-election of former President Donald Trump and after several universities in Mississippi have renamed their diversity offices. Earlier this year, the IHL board approved changes to the University of Southern Mississippi’s mission and vision statements that removed the words “diverse” and “inclusiveness.”
In an email, John Sewell, IHL’s communications director, did not respond to several questions about the policy changes but wrotethat the board’s goal was to “reinforce our commitment to ensuring students have access to the best education possible, supported by world-class faculty and staff.”
“The end goal is to support all students, and to make sure they graduate fully prepared to enter the workforce, hopefully in Mississippi,” Sewell added.
On Thursday, trustees approved the changes without discussion after a first reading by Harold Pizzetta, the associate commissioner for legal affairs and risk management. But Sewell wrote in an email that the board discussed the policy amendments in open session two months ago during its retreat in Meridian, more than an hour away from the board’s normal meeting location in Jackson.
IHL often uses these retreats, which unlike its regular board meetings aren’t livestreamed and are rarely attended by members of the public outside of the occasional reporter, to discuss potentially controversial policy changes.
Last year, the board had a spirited discussion about a policy change that would have increased its oversight of off-campus programs during its retreat at the White House Hotel in Biloxi. In 2022, during a retreat that also took place in Meridian, trustees discussed changing the board’s tenure policies. At both retreats, a Mississippi Today reporter was the only member of the public to witness the discussions.
The changes to IHL’s diversity policy echo a shift, particularly at colleges and universities in conservative states, from concepts like diversity in favor of “access” and “opportunity.” In higher education, the term “diversity, equity and inclusion” has traditionally referred to a range of efforts to comply with civil rights laws and foster a sense of on-campus belonging among minority populations.
But in recent years, conservative politicians have contended that DEI programs are wasteful spending and racist. A bill to ban state funding for DEI in Mississippi died earlier this year, but at least 10 other states have passed laws seeking to end or restrict such initiatives at state agencies, including publicly funded universities, according to ABC News.
In Mississippi, the word “diversity” first appeared in IHL’s policies in 1998. The diversity statement was adopted in 2005 and amended in 2013.
The board’s vote on Thursday turned the diversity statement, which was deleted in its entirety, into a “statement on higher education access and success” according to the board book.
“One of the strengths of Mississippi is the diversity of its people,” the diversity statement read. “This diversity enriches higher education and contributes to the capacity that our students develop for living in a multicultural and interdependent world.”
Significantly, the diversity statement required the IHL board to evaluate the university presidents and the higher learning commissioner on diversity outcomes.
The statement also included system-wide goals — some of which it is unclear if the board has achieved — to increase the enrollment and graduation rates of minority students, employ more underrepresented faculty, staff and administrators, and increase the use of minority-owned contractors and vendors.
Sewell did not respond to questions about if IHL has met those goals or if the board will continue to evaluate presidents on diversity outcomes.
In the new policy, those requirements were replaced with two paragraphs about the importance of respectful dialogue on campus and access to higher education for all Mississippians.
“We encourage all members of the academic community to engage in respectful, meaningful discourse with the aim of promoting critical thinking in the pursuit of knowledge, a deeper understanding of the human condition, and the development of character,” the new policy reads. “All students should be supported in their educational journey through programming and services designed to have a positive effect on their individual academic performance, retention, and graduation.”
Also excised was a policy that listed common characteristics of universities in Mississippi, including “a commitment to ethnic and gender diversity,” among others.Another policy on institutional scholarships was also edited to remove a clause that required such programs to “promote diversity.”
“IHL is committed to higher education access and success among all populations to assist the state of Mississippi in meeting its enrollment and degree completion goals, as well as building a highly-skilled workforce,” the institutional scholarship policy now reads.
The board also approved a change that requires the universities to review their institutional mission statements on an annual basis.
A policy on “planning principles” will continue to include the word “diverse,” and a policy that states the presidential search advisory committees will “be representative in terms of diversity” was left unchanged.
The shuttered St. Dominic’s mental health unit will reopen under the management of a for-profit, Texas-based company next month.
Oceans Behavioral Hospital Jackson, a 77-bed facility, will provide inpatient behavioral health services to adults and seniors and add intensive outpatient treatment services next year.
“Jackson continuously ranks as one of the cities for our company that shows one of the greatest needs in terms of behavioral health,” Oceans Healthcare CEO Stuart Archer told Mississippi Today at a ribbon cutting ceremony at its location on St. Dominic’s campus Thursday. “…There’s been an outcry for high quality care.”
St. Dominic’s 83-bed mental health unit closed suddenly in June 2023, citing “substantial financial challenges.”
Merit Health Central, which operates a 71-bed psychiatric health hospital unit in Jackson, sued Oceans in March, arguing that the new hospital violated the law by using a workaround to avoid a State Health Department requirement that the hospital spend at least 17% of its gross patient revenue on indigent and charity care.
Without a required threshold for this care, Merit Health Central will shoulder the burden of treating more non-paying patients, the hospital in South Jackson argued.
The suit, which also names St. Dominic’s Hospital and the Mississippi Department of Health as defendants, awaits a ruling from Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Tametrice Hodges-Linzey next year.
The complaint does not bar Oceans from moving forward with its plans to reopen, said Archer.
A hallway inside Oceans Behavioral Hospital in Jackson, Miss., is seen on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024, during the facility’s grand opening. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Oceans operates two other mental health facilities in Mississippi and over 30 other locations in Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.
“Oceans is very important to the Coast, to Tupelo, and it’s important right here in this building. It’s part of the state of Mississippi’s response to making sure people receive adequate mental health care in Mississippi,” said Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann at the Nov. 21 ribbon cutting.
Some community leaders have been critical of the facility.
“Oceans plans to duplicate existing services available to insured patients while ignoring the underserved and indigent population in need,” wrote Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones in an Oct. 1 letter provided to Mississippi Today by Merit Health.
Massachusetts-based Webster Equity Partners, a private-equity firm with a number of investments in health care, bought Oceans in 2022. St. Dominic’s is owned by Louisiana-based Catholic nonprofit Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System.
Oceans first filed a “certificate of need” application to reopen the St. Dominic’s mental health unit in October 2023.
Mississippi’s certificate of need law requires medical facilities to receive approval from the state before opening a new health care center to demonstrate there is a need for its services.
The Department of Health approved the application under the condition that the hospital spend at least 17% of its patient revenue on free or low-cost medical care for low-income individuals – far more than the two percent it proposed.
Stuart Archer, CEO of Oceans Healthcare, speaks during the grand opening of Oceans Behavioral Hospital in Jackson, Miss., on Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Oceans projected in its application that the hospital’s profit would equal $2.6 million in its third year, and it would spend $341,103 on charity care.
Merit Health contested the conditional approval, arguing that because its mental health unit provides 22% charity care, Oceans providing less would have a “significant adverse effect” on Merit by diverting more patients without insurance or unable to pay for care to its beds.
Oceans and St. Dominic’s also opposed the state’s charity care condition, arguing that 17% was an unreasonable figure.
But before a public hearing could be held on the matter, Oceans and St. Dominic’s filed for a “change of ownership,” bypassing the certificate of need process entirely. The state approved the application 11 days later.
Merit Health Central then sued Oceans, St. Dominic and the State Department of Health, seeking to nullify the change of ownership.
“The (change of ownership) filing and DOH approval … are nothing more than an ‘end run’ around CON law,” wrote Merit Health in the complaint.
Oceans, St. Dominic’s and the Mississippi Department of Health have filed motions to dismiss the case.
