There’s been quite the controversy next door in Louisiana where, at Gov. Jeff Landry’s insistence, a live tiger was on display in Tiger Stadium last Saturday night at an LSU football game for the first time in eight years.
Rick Cleveland
Tiger or not, Alabama pummeled LSU 42-13. Since then, Landry has defended renting a tiger named Omar Bradley from a Florida exotic zoo to put on display at the game.
Mike the Tiger — actually, this was was Mike VI — died in 2016, and LSU decided to end the practice of having a live tiger present at football game. It was part of the lore of Tiger Stadium and it could be intimidating for opposing players: a huge, growling Tiger parked right outside the visitor’s locker room. Usually, there was a microphone in the cage.
Take the case of the late, great Thomas “Shorty” McWilliams, Mississippi State superstar of the mid-1940s, who played as an 18-year-old freshman for the first time at Tiger Stadium on Oct. 21, 1944. Old as I am, I am too young to have ever seen McWilliams play, but I wish I had. My daddy told me he was the best player he ever saw, and he saw thousands in a life of following football. I know this: The man they called “Shorty Mac” was the only four-time All-SEC player in league history, and it’s difficult to imagine in today’s college football landscape there’ll ever be another one.
Thomas “Shorty” McWilliams Credit: Mississippi State athletics
What follows is the story, told firsthand by Shorty Mac, when he was interviewed in 1995 by the good folks at Communications Arts who were putting together exhibits for the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Museum. To set the stage, McWilliams was punting out of the end zone, near the visitor’s locker room at Tiger Stadium, in pregame warm-ups.
We’ll let Shorty Mac take it from there: “Unbeknownst to me, they rolled up Mike the Tiger in that cage right behind me. I didn’t know he was there and that 500-pound tiger roared. Oh, he roared at the top of his lungs. It scared me so bad. It scared the (bleep) out of me. I ruined myself. I had to play the whole game in those pants.”
You can watch and listen to McWilliams tell that and other stories on the football kiosk at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Museum. Now then, here’s the rest of the story from that night in Baton Rouge. Shorty Mac apparently recovered nicely from that pregame scare. He scored both touchdowns in a 13-6 Mississippi State victory over Coach Bernie Moore’s Tigers, who included a young quarterback named Y.A. Tittle, later one of the great NFL stars of the 20th century. Afterward, Moore told reporters the only way to stop McWilliams “is to not schedule Mississippi State. He killed our defense.”
McWilliams was the game’s leading rusher and passer. Indeed, he led the SEC in scoring with 84 points as a freshman. McWilliams played the 1945 season at Army, then returned to State to play his final three seasons of college football.
Back to the present: Gov. Landry, speaking Monday night, said he regretted that the live tiger was the only tiger who showed up for the Alabama game, which was every bit as one-sided as the final score indicates. As reported in The Athletic, Landry said, “I had more people come up to me saying they remembered Mike the Tiger more than some of the great plays in Tiger Stadium… It’s about tradition. At the end of the day, the woke people have tried to take tradition out of this country. It’s tradition that built this country.”
I won’t take a side in that controversy, but I sure would love to here what Shorty Mac would say.
Two more Shorty Mac vignettes before we close:
The late Dick Smith, a sports writer and later a newspaper owner, told me about one of Shorty’s games at Meridian High in 1943. “Meridian was playing Tupelo for the Big Eight Conference championship,” Smith said. “The first seven times Shorty touched the ball, he scored. Short runs, long runs, kick returns, didn’t matter. Every time he got the ball he scored. The eighth time he touched it, he ran 70 yards until he pulled his hamstring and went down on the two-yard line. By then, Meridian was so far ahead, they didn’t need him.”
The late Edward “Cookie” Epperson told me this one at Shorty Mac’s funeral in January 1997. Epperson was Shorty’s roommate at State and one of his best pals. Said Epperson: “Shorty was enjoying a hot shower after practice when a couple of players sneaked an opossum into the shower with him. That possum hissed and Shorty flew out of there. He didn’t bother to get his clothes or even a towel. He ran past the secretary and on outside. He never ran faster.”
Shorty Mac wasn’t afraid of the biggest, baddest linebackers, but he apparently did fear critters whether they roared or hissed.
Longtime law enforcement officer Darryl Norwood was trying to help Jackson police catch a man threatening to kill his family when an officer shot Norwood, instead of the man, with a stun gun.
That night would be the last that Norwood would walk without a cane.
Rather than admit what happened, authorities blamed his injuries on a gunshot or physical altercation, according to medical and police records.Norwood has filed a lawsuit against the Jackson Police Department and Cpl. Rebecca Lomax for acting “with gross negligence” when using her stun gun to strike Norwood.
It was after 10 p.m., on Nov. 1, 2022, when the doorbell rang inside the home of Norwood, who was sitting in the living room with his 23-year-old daughter, Jaylen. They checked their security cameras to see who it was, but they saw no one at the front door.
Because it was the night after Halloween, Jaylen assumed some kids were still out trick-or-treating. But after hearing movement in the backyard, Norwood stepped outside, identified himself as a police officer, and asked whoever it was to show themselves. When they didn’t, he told his daughter to call 911.
After opening the front door and stepping outside, he recognized four children from down the street. He said the children, who were crying, told him that their father, Clifton Sutton, was going to kill them and their mother.
Norwood said he grabbed his police badge, handcuffs and gun before going to find Sutton.
Veteran law enforcement officer Darryl Norwood at his south Jackson home, Friday, July 19, 2024, describing the incident that led to him being permanently disabled after he was shocked with a stun gun in the back of his head by a Jackson police officer. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Norwood said he found Sutton in his front yard, hollering, screaming and flailing about. He said it was clear to him that Sutton was high.
When Sutton spotted his children at Norwood’s house, he started running toward them. As he got closer, Norwood shouted at him multiple times to stop, but he didn’t.
After hearing the commotion, people emerged from their homes. Two of them said Sutton threw himself into a moving car and fell to the ground, only to get right back up, as he tried to make his way to Norwood’s house.
Norwood said Sutton then walked to a neighbor’s house and sat on the ground. A neighbor said he and Norwood tried to keep Sutton calm and away from his family while they waited for the police. Four minutes later, Jackson police arrived, according to police records.
Video footage obtained by Mississippi Today shows Norwood walking up to an officer’s patrol car and talking to the officer through the window. At the same time, Sutton sat on the hood of another officer’s car, surrounded by the first officer to arrive at the scene and two other men.
Norwood said he was trying to explain to Cpl. Rebecca Lomax that he had things under control when Sutton suddenly walked away.
Norwood began to chase him. Norwood said he worried what Sutton might do to his family and took it upon himself to restrain Sutton since the police weren’t doing that.
Norwood grabbed one of Sutton’s hands and began to pin him up against another police car, aided by a Jackson officer. Norwood said he was hoping to handcuff Sutton — the last thing he remembered before waking up in a hospital.
The video shows what appears to be a female officer shining a light from her stun gun as she moves toward the three men. The crackle of the stun gun can be heard as she fires it.
Photograph of the rear of Darryl Norwood’s head, showing the staples placed at the wound created by a stun gun. Credit: Photo courtesy of Darryl Norwood
When a stun gun strikes, it sends 50,000 volts through a person’s body, immobilizing that person and making it impossible for them to brace their fall with their hands or arms, according to experts.
After seeing Norwood strike the asphalt, Jaylen began screaming and rushed to his side.
She said she saw him splayed out on the street, unconscious in a pool of blood. According to Norwood’s ex-wife, Charlotte, Lomax administered chest compressions and shouted, “Lou, Lou, get up, Lou,” while Norwood lay unconscious.
According to police records, an ambulance arrived at 11:38 p.m. to take Norwood to the University of Mississippi Medical Center. One officer told the dispatcher that a “male [was] shot in the head.
Hospital records say that a female Jackson police officer, presumably Lomax, told doctors, “there may not have been a gunshot, but there was definitely an altercation … and this patient’s head was being beat up on the ground.”
When Norwood woke up in the hospital, he discovered that doctors had intubated him. He spent the next three months in and out of the hospital.
Before the incident, Norwood said he lived an active life. He spent his free time woodworking, weightlifting and mountain biking. Nowhe uses a cane to get around and battles constant pain due to nerve damage.
His “cognitive function has been adversely affected, and he is now suffering from memory loss, anxiety attacks, depression, numbness on the left side of his body, and uncontrollable emotions,” according to the lawsuit filed in Hinds County Circuit Court.
Norwood attended physical therapy sessions until Medicaid stopped covering his treatment in January of 2023.
Veteran law enforcement officer Darryl Norwood hugs his dog King, at his south Jackson home, Friday, July 19, 2024. Norwood was permanently disabled after he was shocked with a stun gun in the back of his head by a Jackson police officer. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
His ex-wife came to live with him and take care of him after the incident. He said he also has two support Yorkiepoos, Prince and Giselle. “When I start crying, both will come in my lap and lick my tears,” he said. “They know when I’m hurting.”
Norwood lived in Jackson all his life. In his youth, he had a few run-ins with the police. One time, officers dragged him out of his car and aimed a shotgun at his head. “I thought I was dead,” he said. Officers then released him after they realized he wasn’t the one they were looking for, he said.
Norwood became an officer because he wanted to make a difference. And he believes he did by teaching his officers how to treat people with respect on the job.
“You had to have accountability for your officers. If you did something wrong, you let me know what it is. I’m gonna get that monkey off your back as best I can,” he said. “I will die for you…, but I will not lie for you.”
According to Norwood, the officers he’s trained have gone on to become sergeants and lieutenants elsewhere and have reached out to him to thank him for his mentorship. Their praise keeps him going, he said.
The lawsuit accuses Lomax of “reckless disregard” for firing on Norwood, “who was committing no crime.”
The city attorney’s office responded that even if Lomax fired a stun gun during a lawful arrest, the evidence fails to “satisfy the high burden required for reckless disregard” and, therefore, both Lomax and the city are entitled to immunity.
The lawsuit claims that the city failed to properly train officers on the use of stun guns and “created and maintained a culture, pattern and practice of ignoring [a] person’s safety and welfare in the Jackson Police Department and violating [a] person’s constitutional rights.”
After the case was transferred to federal court, U.S. District Judge Daniel P. Jordan III dismissed all the constitutional claims, saying Norwood had failed to prove a culture or a pattern of stun gun misuse. “A plaintiff must do more than describe the incident that gave rise to his injury,” he wrote.
Jordan dismissed the claim against Lomax, concluding that Norwood had failed to overcome “Lomax’s qualified-immunity defense.”
Jordan remanded the lawsuit back to Hinds County Circuit Court, where it is still pending.
Norwood said when he contacted the Jackson Police Department to obtain a record of what happened, they told him they didn’t have it.
Mississippi Today tried to obtain the incident report, use of force report, and body cam and dash cam footage related to the incident. The Jackson Police Department claims the records are part of an open investigation and denied our request for them.
Norwood served as an officer and lieutenant for the University of Mississippi Medical Center Police for over a decade before taking medical retirement in 2019 after he sustained an injury to his back. He said if the department had followed protocol, there should be an incident report and a separate use of force report on the firing of Lomax’s stun gun.
Norwood also tried to contact Lomax, whom he trained at UMMC, but was unable to reach her.
This is not the first time Lomax has injured someone on the job. In 2011, two years after becoming an officer with the Columbus Police Department, she was suspended for 30 days without pay for causing a collision that sent her and three elderly women to the hospital.
Mississippi Today reached out to Lomax. She referred all questions to the city attorney’s office, which wouldn’t comment and pointed to court filings.
The kids Norwood helped that night brought him a fruit basket and a thank you card addressed to “Superman.” Sutton sent Norwood a handwritten apology.
“I believe God doesn’t make mistakes, only lessons to learn from,” Sutton wrote. “I’m very sorry for the pain I have caused you and your family.”
In a postscript, he said that he’d recently found God and was trying to be a better husband and father. That night, he asked his wife and kids to pray with him.
“A spirit came over me and took control,” he wrote. “I don’t remember anything that happened.”
Sutton said when he woke up in the hospital, a police officer told him he’d assaulted Norwood. Norwood denies that Sutton assaulted him. Norwood doesn’t regret his intervention. “I thank God that I went out there and helped the kids and the wife; I do, but sometimes it hurts,” he said. “I’m just hoping that somebody will help me, and this won’t happen to nobody else.”
Mike Justice, who won state championships at Calhoun City, Louisville and Madison Central, joins the Clevelands to talk about his Hall of Fame career, Ole Miss-Georgia, the Saints, the high school playoffs and Jeff Lebby’s Mississippi State program.
Abbott Myers has been farming on his land in the north Mississippi Delta since 1969. Between the rising costs of everything from land to equipment to chemicals, as well as the toll of recent droughts, Myers knows his industry is in a precarious place.
“The next couple of years are really going to be some hard years in agriculture it looks like,” he told Mississippi Today over the summer. “Unless something changes.”
With a growing market for clean energy and a medley of financial obstacles for modern agriculture, farmers in Mississippi and elsewhere are exploring the potential of putting renewable power projects on their land.
Earlier this year, energy company AES partnered with Amazon to open the state’s first utility-scale wind power facility on land that includes Myers’ farm. Myers, who lives in the small town of Dundee, admitted that he’s not much of a renewable energy enthusiast himself – “They’re too inefficient,” he said – but he was thrilled by the business opportunity. He’s being compensated, he said, for not only the space but with a cut of the power revenue, too.
Abbott Myers stands in front of wind turbines on his farmland in Dundee, Miss., on Oct. 14, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Relative to a solar farm, he explained, wind turbines don’t take up much space. There are 19 turbines scattered across 1,600 acres of his farm, but just about 10 of those acres will be unfarmable, Myers said. By next year each of the machines will be surrounded by the rice he’s growing.
“I had a good friend come by and tell me I was ruining the aesthetic value of the Mississippi Delta skyline with these ugly things sticking up 700 feet,” he said. “Well, I told him we got transmission lines, we got cell phone towers sticking up everywhere. I can’t see a whole lot of difference in that, but some people don’t like them.”
Myers said he had some concerns going into the endeavor, such as noise from the turbines or their threat to flying birds. After looking at some research, though, he found out that “a lot more birds are killed by kitty cats than by wind turbines.”
“You’d be amazed how many kitty cats kill birds,” he said, adding that his house is within half a mile from the turbines and he mostly never hears them.
Elsewhere in the state, farmers are looking into the potential of “agrivoltaics,” a growing practice that merges farming with solar power generation. Kendall Garraway and Ted Kendall head their family’s Bolton-based company, Gaddis Farms, and recently leased land mostly made of pine timber to a solar developer.
Farmland in Dundee, Miss., is overlooked by rotating wind turbines on Oct. 14, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
They’re unsure exactly what kind of farming they’ll be able to do around the solar panels – traditional row crops like soybeans and cotton are out of the picture – but they believe there’s potential to have grazing animals like sheep or a pollinating setup with honeybees. Either way, the solar panels, managed by Apex Clean Energy, will bring in a new source of revenue.
“We just saw this as a further diversification of our operation,” Kendall said, explaining that the market for pine timber has gone downhill in recent years. “You can’t get anybody to pay you for pine timber that needs thinning.”
Protesters against the building of a solar farm in their area gathered outside the Chancery Court building, Monday, June 17, 2024. The Hinds County Board of Supervisors voted 3 – 2 in favor of the solar farm. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Many nearby residents, though, weren’t pleased with the decision and protested Hinds County’s approval of the solar project earlier this year (one protestor is appealing the move in circuit court). Their objections ranged from the panels being an eyesore to the potential impact on the surrounding wildlife and to the land itself.
“A lot of the stuff that people are worried about, like screening and cleanup… We’re not planning on leaving,” Garraway said, adding that the project will include wildlife-friendly fencing and that, under their contract, any cleanup of the project would ultimately fall on Apex. “We’re not looking to devalue our property.”
The agreement with Apex lasts for 30 years, Kendall said, and he feels comfortable that they could still farm on the land again if they decide not to renew the lease.
Commissioner of Agriculture Andy Gipson, discusses the current status of farming and its future in the state, Monday, Nov. 27, 2023 at the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Others, like Agriculture and Commerce Commissioner Andy Gipson, worry that the expansion of solar facilities especially may displace farmland. During a “Solar Summit” the Public Service Commission held over the summer, Gipson quoted a 2022 study projecting that 83% of the country’s new solar projects will likely end up on farms. His concern, he explained, is that solar companies are using temporary federal funds to take advantage of a struggling agriculture industry.
“Farmers are being faced with these pressures, they’re being approached with financial payments that would be many times what (they would make) continuing to farm that land,” Gipson said. “One of the questions we as a state have to answer is, what happens when that money dries up?
“We understand there is a place for solar in our power grid, but we also must consider the long term impacts on agriculture. For every acre we convert to solar energy, that is an acre of land we do not have or may not have for food production.”
Others are less concerned. Ex-Central District Public Service Commissioner Brent Bailey, for instance, said later at the Solar Summit that existing and proposed solar projects make up just a small fraction of the state’s farmland and yet provide significant public economic benefits.
Wind turbines are seen near powerline transformers on farmland in Dundee, Miss., on Oct. 14, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
“We actually rank 37th in the nation as far as the amount of solar installed in Mississippi, our four neighboring states have more solar on the ground and operational than we do,” Bailey said. “So the perception that we have all this solar just coming up everywhere, and the timescales for development, it’s misleading, I think.
“Solar farms actually occupy 0.056% of (Mississippi’s) agricultural land… If all projects approved and under review are built, still only 0.22% of agricultural land will be impacted. These projects total $4.5 billion in private sector investments in Mississippi, leading to millions of dollars of local revenues to public schools and county budgets.”
The potential for renewable projects on farmland has also caught the eyes of the state’s academics. Last year, a Mississippi State University student began working with the company Cubico at its solar plant near Greenwood to study how well turfgrass can grow alongside the panels.
Cory Gallo, assistant dean for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at MSU, explained that the dual purpose of farming on a solar company’s land can deliver financial benefits in both directions.
“Whether it’s animals (that graze the land) that can be sold for protein, or turf that’s sold as a product, that’s a win economically,” Gallo said. “You have soil (around the panels) that’s less erodible, you’re managing the land. There’s a lot of overlap there in that it’s a benefit for the (solar companies), and also a win for farmers and food production and environmental management. Which, in my mind, is the best of both worlds.”
Wind turbines tower above silos on farmland in Dundee, Miss., on Oct. 14, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Gallo clarified that he doesn’t advocate for or against the practice. He said it’s important to mitigate any impacts to surrounding natural life, and said he hopes the university’s research will help inform landowners interested in using their land for wind or solar farms.
“How do you preserve the character of a place at the same time you’re doing these (projects)?” he said. “That comes back to leaving environmental corridors for habitat as well as water quality, which could be a good practice that helps to mitigate the impact of essentially clear cutting a large area of land. At the end of the day, these (facilities) are in large parcels that change the nature of what’s on the ground.”
Years from now, we will remember many of the vivid images from a rainy night in Oxford and Ole Miss’ thoroughly convincing 28-10 victory over mighty Georgia:
Of worthy Ole Miss Heisman Trophy candidate Jaxson Dart limping to the locker room early, the game seemingly over almost before it started. But, no, redshirt freshman Austin Simmons rallied the Rebels, directing a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to tie the game at 7. Defeating a team that has won 53 of its last 56 and two of the last three national championships requires so many huge contributions. None were bigger than what Simmons, just turned 19, did. The lanky kid from Miami stands 6 feet, 4 inches tall, but he played much taller than that Saturday night.
Of Dart limping back onto the field, his left ankle heavily taped, and providing clutch play after clutch play in a remarkable display of grit and and character. Dart made so many plays, both with his arm and his legs, but the one I’ll remember is when he escaped the Georgia pass rush, somehow getting free while running to his left, turned the corner and rambled 28 yards, clearly favoring the left ankle, before blowing up a Georgia safety who finally – and painfully – made the tackle. It was the biggest play of a third quarter drive that extended the Rebels’ lead to 25-10.
Of a smothering, ball-hawking Ole Miss defense that came at Georgia quarterback Carson Beck from so many angles he never seemed to get settled. Last year, on a similarly rainy day, Georgia smoked Ole Miss 52-17, gaining 611 yards of total offense, 300 of it on the ground. The Rebels clearly were out-manned, so they went out and got some new men, spending heavily on defense in the transfer portal. Georgia could not block them all. The Rebels signed the aptly named Princely Umanmielen from Florida, Walter Nolen from Texas A&M and Chris Paul from Arkansas, Trey Amos from Alabama and others. And before you call it “the best team money can buy,” remember this: You have to buy the right ones and then you have to coach them. Those new guys have meshed well with returners such as J.J. Pegues and Suntarine Perkins in coordinator Pete Golding’s defense that often looks as if it is playing with 13 guys instead of 11.
Of a squirrel, who stole the spotlight and stopped the game for nearly a minute in the second quarter, scampering onto the field and darting this way and that. It eventually headed toward the Georgia sidelines, scattering Bulldogs players including the quarterback Beck, who had better luck evading the squirrel than he did the Rebels’ pass rush.
Of Ole Miss receivers running so free in the Georgia secondary you’d almost swear they must have smelled just awful. We haven’t seen this many receivers consistently get so open since Steve Spurrier was drawing up ball plays at The Swamp in Gainesville. Keep in mind, Ole Miss was doing this without its best receiver Tre Harris – “the best receiver in the country,” Lane Kiffin says – who missed his third consecutive game. For that matter, the Rebs were also playing without starting running back Henry Parrish Jr.
Of Kiffin, the mastermind of it all, choking up briefly during his postgame interview with ESPN’s Molly McGrath when talking about Dart. We don’t often see that side of Kiffin but you could tell this one meant the world to him. This was the so-called signature victory his otherwise highly successful tenure at Ole Miss has lacked.
Of Caden Davis’ kicking and Fraser Masin’s punting. As previously typed, you don’t win games like this without multiple, huge contributions, and those must include the kicking game. Davis, who has one of the strongest legs in football, was a perfect 5-for-5 on field goals, including a 53-yarder. Masin, from Brisbane, Australia, punted only twice but one was a Ray Guy-like 65-yard boomer that flipped the field late in the second quarter.
Of Ole Miss fans rushing onto the field, not once but twice in a wild, raucous celebration that rivaled the one after a similar conquest of Alabama 10 years earlier. The postgame flood of humanity likely will cost the Rebels $250,000, which Ole Miss must pay to Georgia. Maybe, the Bulldogs can use it to help buy an offensive tackle who can block Umanamielen and Perkins on the edge. But then, these days, that probably will cost more than 250 grand.
One thing is certain: Ole Miss should move ahead of Georgia in the playoff rankings. Anyone who witnessed Saturday night’s dismantling of the Bulldogs (397 yards to 245) can testify to that. This wasn’t just a victory, it was a statement.
So what’s next? Ole Miss entered the game ranked No. 16 in the new 12-team playoff rankings. Georgia was No. 3. The Rebels should easily move up into the top 12 and should make the playoffs if they can defeat Florida and Mississippi State to end the regular season. No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Miami and No. 15 LSU all lost Saturday. Ole Miss’ two defeats have come by three points each to Kentucky and LSU. The Rebels really are two plays away from 10-0.
Kiffin said beforehand that to win it all, a team eventually will have to beat Georgia. After watching what happened in Oxford, we can all agree that someone is going to have to beat Ole Miss. Currently, that’s a chore.
Marshand Crisler, the former Hinds County interim sheriff and candidate, faces up to 10 years in prison after a federal jury in Jackson found him guilty Friday of soliciting and accepting bribes from a man with previous felony convictions and a pending violent charge.
Crisler was charged with soliciting and accepting $9,500 worth of bribes during his unsuccessful 2021 campaign for Hinds County sheriff in exchange for favors and giving the man ammunition he can’t possess as a felon.
The jury took about two hours to reach a unanimous verdict on both charges.
He will remain out on bond until a sentencing hearing scheduled for Feb. 6, 2025.
When the verdict was read Friday afternoon, Crisler and family members seated behind him remained silent. On the way out of the courthouse, he referred comments to his attorney John Colette.
Colette told reporters outside the courthouse that they are disappointed in the jury’s decision and have plans to appeal. He added that Crisler maintains his innocence, and that he and his family are upset about the jury’s decision.
Over three days, the jury heard testimony from sixwitnesses and reviewed evidence including recordings of conversations between Crisler and Tonarri Moore, the man with past felony convictions and pending state and federal charges who the FBI recruited as an informant.
Moore made the recordings for investigators. During several meetings in Jackson and around Hinds County in 2021, Crisler said he would tell More about investigations involving him, move Moore’s cousin to a safer part of the Hinds County jail, give him a job with the sheriff’s office and give him freedom to have a gun despite prohibitions on Moore having one.
After the government finished calling its witnesses, Colette, made a motion for judgment of acquittal based on a lack of evidence to support charges, which Senior Judge Tom Lee dismissed.
Friday morning, the jury heard from Crisler himself as the defense’s only witness.
In closing arguments, the government reminded the jury that Crisler accepted money from Moore and agreed, as a public official, to act on a number of favors.
Crisler didn’t report any money as a campaign contribution, the government argued, because Crisler didn’t want it to become public that he was taking bribes from a felon.
“How he did it shows why he did it,” said Charles Kirkham of the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Defense attorney Colette told the jury that the evidence doesn’t prove bribery. Crisler was trying to secure campaign funds from Moore, which is not illegal.
Colette asked and jury instructions allowed the jury to consider whether there was entrapment of Crisler, who he said was not a corrupt law enforcement officer
“This entire case,” Colette said. “This corruption was all set up by the FBI so they could knock it down.”
The government got the last word and emphasized that the bribery doesn’t require the agreed acts to be completed.
In response to accusations of entrapment, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bert Carraway said Crisler wasn’t reluctant to take the money, agreed to perform favors or break the law, making the analogy that Crisler never took his foot off the gas and kept accelerating.
Amy St. Pé and Jennifer Schloegel will compete in a runoff election on Nov. 26 for an open seat on the Mississippi Court of Appeals after no candidate in the three–person race won a majority of the vote’s cast in Tuesday’s election.
After the Associated Press reported 99% of the vote, St. Pé received the largest share at 35.5%, with Schloegel second at 32.9%. Ian Baker, the third candidate in the race, received 31.6%.
The AP on Friday had not yet declared Schloegel to be the second person advancing to the runoff race, but Schloegel told Mississippi Today that Baker on Friday afternoon called her to concede the race. 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.
The District 5 seat, which is made up of the counties along the Gulf Coast, became open when Judge Joel Smith decided not to run for reelection.
Now that Schloegel and St. Pé are advancing to a runoff election, 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 Court of Appeals race is now the second major runoff election that will take place just two days before Thanksgiving. A runoff election for the Central District seat on the state Supreme Court will also take place between incumbent Justice Jim Kitchens and Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County.
Jeanne Carter Luckey, a Mississippi Gulf Coast philanthropist who served as the state’s Republican National committeewoman, died on Thursday, Nov. 7. She was 63.
An ardent conservative, Luckey was a key figure in the Republican Party of Mississippi. For more than 30 years, she served the party as president of the Mississippi Federation of Republican Women, co-chair of the Mississippi Republican Party and as a delegate to the Republican National Convention, where she spoke earlier this year, according to her bio on the GOP’s website.
Luckey worked her way up the party by training Republican candidates and volunteers throughout Mississippi after becoming involved in politics in college. On social media, tributes from prominent Republicans across the state noted how she seemed to know everyone in the conversative movement, from former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to President-elect Donald Trump.
Gov. Tate Reeves called Luckey a family friend and praised her for representing Mississippi to the RNC.
“Mississippi will miss you, Jeanne!” Reeves wrote.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann wrote that Luckey’s impact on Mississippi will be felt for years to come.
“Her passion for life, her family, and the issues that were important to her was immeasurable,” Hosemann said.
Luckey, who held degrees from the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi, was also known for her service on the governing board of the state’s public universities. She was appointed to the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees in 2018 by former Gov. Phil Bryant.
“Jeanne Luckey brought an energy and a commitment to her work as a trustee that resonated throughout our state’s public university system, and we are all better for having worked with her,” Al Rankins, the IHL commissioner, said in a statement Friday. “Students for years to come will benefit from her dedication to higher education in Mississippi.”
During her tenure on the board, Luckey started a task force to examine the university system’s compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Luckey had been in a wheelchair since she was in a car accident nearly 20 years ago.
Prior to the accident, Luckey was an avid runner who notched between five and 13 miles a week, according to her social media. She had also worked as a special education teacher in the Ocean Springs School District. More recently, she owned a real estate holding company called JCL, LLC, and Magnolia State Development Group.
“A brilliant mind and devoted public servant, she championed education throughout her life, even as an undergraduate at Ole Miss in her decision to pursue special education,” Ole Miss Chancellor Glenn Boyce said in a statement.
Luckey also served on several boards supporting arts and culture on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, including the Walter Anderson Museum of Art, the Great Southern Club in Gulfport, and the Gulf Coast Debutante Society. She reportedly loved the arts and had seen nearly 100 Broadway plays.
While she recently battled health challenges, the Ocean Springs Weekly Record reported that Luckey unexpectedly passed away peacefully in her sleep.
Luckey is survived by her husband, Alwyn, an Ocean Springs attorney who was her high school sweetheart, and their two daughters, Laurel and Taylor.
Republican Julie Fedorchak will be the first woman to represent North Dakota in the U.S. House of Representatives. Fedorchak soundly secured the seat with nearly 70 percent of the vote. When asked how it felt to be the first woman to represent her state in the House, Fedorchak told The North Dakota Monitor that she was honored.
“I think it’s great to have diversity in genders, in backgrounds, in perspectives,” Fedorchak said. “We need to have as diverse of representation as we can get in Washington, and I’m happy to be part of that.”
Fedorchak’s victory means Mississippi is the final state to have never sent a woman to the lower chamber of Congress. The state has one of the worst track records when it comes to women’s representation in politics. No woman had been elected as governor or served in either chamber of Congress until 2018 when Gov. Phil Bryant appointed Cindy Hyde-Smith to replace Sen. Thad Cochran in the U.S. Senate. Prior to that, it was the only state in the country with that distinction.
The number of women running for U.S. House seats dropped 20 percent this year — and far fewer Republican women made it past their primaries than in 2022, Jasmine Mithanireported for The 19th last month. Women were only 16 percent of Republican House nominees this year. In contrast, 46 percent of Democratic House nominees were women.
