This is The Marshall Project - Jackson’s newsletter, a monthly digest of criminal justice news from around Mississippi gathered by our staff of local journalists. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters.
In this edition, we look at the state of Mississippi’s prison conditions nearly a year after the latest investigation by the Department of Justice. Also, a federal prosecutor will resign ahead of the incoming Trump administration and an outdated sentencing law that has one man serving a life sentence is reviewed.
– Caleb Bedillion and Daja E. Henry, staff writers, The Marshall Project - Jackson
Biden-appointed federal prosecutor to resign
Todd Gee, a Biden-appointed federal prosecutor for the Southern District of Mississippi, which includes Jackson and Hinds County, announced that he will resign on Jan. 17, three days ahead of the inauguration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump.
Gee, a Vicksburg native, was sworn in as U.S. attorney in October 2023. Under Gee, the office led the prosecution of several individual law enforcement officers on charges of civil rights violations, and launched investigations into the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department and the city of Lexington in Holmes County.
Last month, the DOJ unsealed the indictment of a former Capitol police officer charged with felony deprivation of rights under color of law after allegedly using excessive force by kicking and slamming the head of a handcuffed man he arrested.
In November, federal prosecutors charged Jackson’s Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Jackson Councilman Aaron Banks and Hinds County District Attorney Jody E. Owens II on charges of taking part in a bribery scheme. The U.S. attorney’s office also prosecuted the “Goon Squad,” six former officers in Rankin County convicted of abusing and torturing two Black men.
The federal investigation in Rankin County is ongoing, probing whether the Sheriff’s Department has engaged in a pattern or practice of using excessive force, racially discriminatory policing practices, or making unlawful stops, searches and arrests.
The DOJ announced in September 2024 that its investigation in Lexington found that the city and its police department used excessive force, illegally jailed residents, discriminated against Black people, and unfairly used fines and fees. Gee wrote in the Vicksburg Post that the city cooperated with its investigation.
It is customary for a new administration to ask U.S. attorneys to resign at the start of the president’s term. Gee is joined in mass resignation by Biden-appointed federal prosecutors nationwide, including in Washington, D.C., Houston and Miami. The acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi, Clay Joyner, has made no announcement about his job.
Have Mississippi’s prisons improved?
Mississippi’s prison system has a brutal reputation, from its beginnings in the Jim Crow era with the violent system of convict leasing to becoming a modern-day incubator of gang violence. Five years ago, gang wars and unrest left at least 10 dead. Since then, the Department of Justice has conducted investigations into four state prisons, finding rampant gang activity, severe understaffing and a steady flow of contraband. Mississippi Department of Corrections officials say the facilities have since turned a corner, but Mississippi Today recently reported that the facilities still have a long way to go.
Burl Cain, the controversial MDOC commissioner, took the helm in 2020. Prison officials pointed to the transfer of gang members to other states, a decrease in homicides and suicides, and renovations at Mississippi State Penitentiary as signs of his success. Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman, is the state’s oldest facility and has often faced calls for its closure. It was established in 1901 and houses more than 2,500 people.
However, the state’s prisons remain understaffed and prison reform advocates still report unsafe conditions.
Staffing levels in Mississippi prisons fell by more than half from 2014 through 2021. Despite pay increases, staffing has yet to return to pre-2014 levels. A 2023 state Health Department inspection of Parchman found mold and broken toilets. Though reports of violence have decreased, there have been at least two dozen reported suicides and at least nine reported homicides since 2021, according to records obtained by The Marshall Project - Jackson. Several deaths that happened in 2024 have not yet been classified.
Did someone you care about get injured or die in a Mississippi prison?
The Marshall Project wants to know about deaths, injuries or mistreatment that happened in state prisons to incarcerated people or prison employees. If there’s an incident you think we should investigate, please contact us through this form or jackson@themarshallproject.org. All tips are confidential.
Mississippi man serving life sentence for drug crime asks for clemency
An 80-year-old Mississippi man locked up for life in federal prison under a sentencing law that doesn’t exist anymore has asked President Joe Biden for clemency before he leaves office on Jan. 20.
Willie Hampton was sentenced in 2001 for crack cocaine possession. At that time, the judge was required by federal law to impose a mandatory lifetime sentence because Hampton had several prior drug convictions.
But the First Step Act of 2018, which passed with bipartisan support during the first administration of then-President Donald Trump, lessened the severity of some mandatory minimum drug laws.
If Hampton had been sentenced today for the same offense, with the same criminal record, the judge would have had more discretion. A decades-old conviction in California for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute would no longer count against Hampton, and the Mississippi Delta native would face a mandatory minimum of 15 years rather than a mandatory lifetime sentence, though the judge could still sentence him up to life.
Had he received the now-minimum sentence of 15 years in 2001, Hampton, who had no convictions for violent crimes, would likely be free today. Instead, he’s in the 24th year of a lifetime sentence and will most likely die in prison without a pardon or clemency action from the president.
Not all parts of the First Steps Act were retroactive. This means that there are thousands of people like Hampton who are “currently serving outdated and disproportionately long federal prison sentences that would be shorter under today’s law and policy,” according to FWD.us, a criminal justice reform advocacy organization.
The organization has urged Biden to use his clemency powers in his remaining time in office to shorten the sentences of some people in prison.
“Time is running out for the thousands of people serving outdated sentences,” said FWD.us Executive Director Zoë Towns in a recent statement.
In his clemency application, Hampton also emphasizes his military service in the Vietnam War, during which he was wounded and received a Purple Heart.
