High Court Rules Race Can’t Be a Factor in Jury Strikes
With a 7-2 vote Friday, the Supreme Court vacated a death-penalty conviction in a case where a Mississippi prosecutor had a track record of eliminating black jurors.
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Black Voters Call Mississippi Election System Racist
Mississippi’s system for electing statewide officials is intentionally racist and designed to disenfranchise the African-American population, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday by four black residents seeking to upend a Jim Crow-era law more than a century later.
Read moreFormer Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran Dies at 81
Republican former U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, who served 45 years in Washington and used seniority to steer billions of dollars to his home state of Mississippi, has died. He was 81.
Read moreNo End in Sight as Mississippi Flood Enters Month 4
Larry Walls should have been out working in his fields last week. Instead, his John Deere tractor is parked on high ground, just beyond the reach of the encroaching floodwaters in the southern Mississippi Delta.
Read moreDisability Discrimination
A federal judge refused to dismiss claims that Mississippi “unnecessarily requires thousands of adults with mental illness to receive services in state-run psychiatric hospitals’ instead of community-based services.”
Read moreMore ‘Heartbeat’ Abortion Bans Advancing in South, Midwest
If a new Mississippi law survives a court challenge, it will be nearly impossible for most pregnant women to get an abortion there.
Read moreStorms Kill 3 in South, Leave 100,000 Without Power
Strong storms roared across the South on Thursday, killing two Mississippi drivers and a woman in Alabama while leaving more than 100,000 people without power across Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.
Read moreMississippi Governor Signs Fetal-Heartbeat Abortion Law
Undeterred by threats of legal challenges, Republican Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant on Thursday made good on his promise to sign into law the nation’s most sweeping abortion restrictions, banning abortions once a fetal heartbeat has been detected – around six weeks of pregnancy.
Read more‘Potentially Historic’ Flooding Threatens Southern States
Scientists are warning that historic flooding could soon deluge parts of several Southern states along the lower Mississippi River, where floodwaters could persist for several weeks.
Read moreMurdered Mail Carrier
A federal judge refused to dismiss claims from the estate of a mail carrier who was shot to death on the job by her ex-husband, finding it “is exceedingly difficult to justify with any reasons” why the postmaster general refused to reassign her despite his death threats and a protective order against him.
Read moreSegregation
A federal judge dismissed a 1965 complaint against the Carroll County (Mississippi) Board of Education, finding “that it has complied with the Court’s desegregation orders for a reasonable period of time and has eliminated the vestiges of past de jure discrimination.”
Read moreRape
A woman claims in a federal complaint that her probation officer in Mississippi raped her repeatedly.
Read moreBeaten to Death
A widow claims in a federal complaint that sheriff’s officers and jail guards in Madison County, Mississippi, beat and tortured her husband to death after arresting him for trespassing.
Read moreSentencing
A Mississippi appeals court reversed and remanded a 60-year sentence without possibility of parole, as well as a $2 million fine against Dennis Beal, a black man who was convicted of selling one-tenth of a gram of cocaine for $30.
Read moreJail Rape
A woman claims in a federal complaint that while she was jailed in Smith County, Miss., for three months without a hearing, she was raped and given herpes by a jailer who has since been fired.
Read morePolice Discrimination
A federal judge sent to trial a black female police officer’s claim of racial and sexual discrimination and retaliation against the city of Jackson, Mississippi.
Read moreMississippi Elects First Woman to Congress Amid Public Hanging Remark
Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith became Mississippi’s first woman elected to Congress Tuesday night, defeating former congressman and secretary of agriculture Mike Espy, in an election marred by race following a remark she made about her willingness to attend a public hanging.
Read moreJudge Won’t Extend Absentee Cutoff in Mississippi Election
A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a request from the NAACP to extend the deadline for absentee ballots to include those received through today’s U.S. Senate runoff election in Mississippi.
Read moreRace Looms Large in Mississippi Senate Race Today
Dogged by controversy for her remark about willingness to attend a public hanging, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, President Donald Trump at her side, told Mississippi voters on Monday: “What’s on the ballot is not just my name, Cindy Hyde-Smith, but your conservative values, that’s what’s on the ballot tomorrow.”
Read moreFederal Judge Lashes Mississippi, Striking Abortion Law
A federal judge Tuesday struck down Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of gestation, blasting the state for passing a law it “knew was unconstitutional” and wasting taxpayer dollars defending it in court.
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